Smith has defended the standard of the Scottish game

Rangers' Walter Smith has hit back at Blackburn boss Paul Ince for describing Celtic's Champions League defeat by Manchester United as "embarrassing".

The Rangers manager defended the state of Scottish football after Tuesday's 3-0 defeat by the English champions.

"It was interesting to hear an English manager commenting, but a lot of the English teams suffer the same fate when they play Manchester United," he said.

"Some of them even worse and they are Premiership teams. They forget that."

Ince had also described the game as "men against boys", but Smith suggested that the match was not a fair reflection of the game north of the border.

"There is a big gulf between Manchester United and a lot of teams in the Premiership - people forget that," he said.

"If you look at Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea, they've made themselves fixtures at the top of that league.

"The game in Scotland is as good as it can be taking into account that football is a financially-based game and has been for the last 10 or 15 years since the introduction of huge sums of television money in England."

Celtic have qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League for the last two seasons, while Rangers reached the Uefa Cup final last year - without the finances available to English clubs.

"Scottish teams do the best they can," said Smith. "Celtic acquitted themselves well in the Champions League last year and I felt we acquitted ourselves well.

"They have a level of finance that's greater than the Scottish clubs, even teams just going into the Premiership for the first time.

Scottish football is not in a desperately poor situation just because Celtic got beat 3-0 by a team who can probably beat any team in Europe 3-0 Walter Smith

"But football throughout Europe is like that as well. You don't see many teams from small countries getting into the latter stages of the Champions League.

"We managed to get to the Uefa Cup final last year, so Scottish teams have proved they can stand up and play and have a level of success.

"It's very difficult for us to do so every year, but it doesn't stop us from competing and I think we compete very well.

"There has been an exaggeration about the effects of Celtic's defeat at Old Trafford.

"They've still to play them at home and they beat Manchester United there the last time and they have beaten most of the teams they have played there.

"Scottish football is not in a desperately poor situation just because Celtic got beat 3-0 by a team who can probably beat any team in Europe 3-0."

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