Smith has called for the return of the winter break before

A three-week rest period was established in season 1998/99 only to be done away with in 2003.

"We had a winter break and then we didn't," said Smith. "We keep changing our mind.

"Personally I wouldn't mind changing to give us a break. I think that would be a sensible thing, but if we are going to do it then we should stick by it."

Rangers are facing a backlog of games after last Tuesday's SPL clash at St Mirren and Saturday's Scottish Cup fourth round tie against East Stirlingshire were both rained off.

The cup tie will take place next Wednesday at the expense of the rearranged Old Firm game at Celtic Park, which was cancelled following the death of Motherwell skipper Phil O'Donnell.

The SPL are now struggling to find dates for Rangers' matches against the Buddies and Celtic.

"We have this debate all the time, don't we?" added Smith, who called for a winter shutdown while in charge of Scotland.

"Most of the other countries have a winter break.

"But if we are going to do it then we should stick by it and so far we haven't been able to do that."

Smith's side have only one free midweek before March due to league and Uefa Cup commitments but the manager thinks his squad can cope.

And he all but ruled out adding any new faces to his playing pool.

"We are going to have to play a number of midweek games but I am not too concerned," he said.

"Obviously if there were other games called off then there would be a problem.

"We have a big enough squad to handle it, we just have to keep them all ready and available for playing.

"We have Steven Smith and Andy Webster coming back to full fitness, although that will take a few weeks yet, so we have a squad of 27 and I don't think we can have much more than that."