Smith hoping to keep Davis at Rangers

Walter Smith has revealed he is keen for Steven Davis to remain at Rangers

beyond the end of the season - but the Ibrox boss is bracing himself for plenty of competition for the midfielder's signature.

Davis has proved to be a big hit since joining on loan from Fulham in January

and has slotted effortlessly into the first team.

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Wanted: Rangers want to keep Steven Davis (left)

He has so far evaded questions about his future but, with Fulham facing a

desperate battle for survival in the Barclays Premier League, the Northern

Irishman could be looking for a move in the summer.

"I haven't really spoken to him about it (staying on)," said Smith.

"His situation was different from Christian Dailly. Christian was released by

West Ham and he was free to sign for us. Steve is on loan, so obviously he

reverts to his club at the end of the season.

"If he is going to leave Fulham - and I don't know if he will or he won't -

there may well be a lot of other clubs interested in him.

"Obviously, we would like to keep him, but that might be a little bit

awkward."

Dailly also arrived in the last transfer window and Smith has been equally

impressed by the Scotland international, whose ability to play in several

positions has been crucial for Rangers.

He was most recently asked to fill the void left by the suspended David Weir at

centre-half in Thursday's UEFA Cup win over Sporting Lisbon, delivering another

impressive performance.

Said Smith: "Christian has played really well for us since he came in and

obviously he's really enjoying it.

"I'm delighted for him because he's a really good professional and works very

hard at his game.

"I felt that towards the end of this season we would need a number of players

who could fill in for a number of positions.

"He's already done so and has played in more positions than maybe I would have

expected him to, but he's fit to a high level and he's helped us a great

deal."

Having booked a place in the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup, Rangers now turn

their focus to reaching the last four of the Scottish Cup.

Partick Thistle earned a replay when they left Ibrox with a 1-1 draw last month

at the first time of asking and Smith is facing a dilemma ahead of Sunday's

visit to Firhill.

He made six changes last time and almost lost out to the First Division outfit

but is well aware he has to rotate his squad to have any hope of coping with the

gruelling demands of competing for a further three trophies.

He said: "We'll need to sit down and think about it but there will be a fair

number of changes, as we had in the previous game, but we'll need to do a lot

better than in that game if we're going to make progress.

"We'll have to look at every game we have to play in a realistic fashion. We

made a lot of changes in our last game and we played poorly, really poorly.

"It's difficult to make six changes, throw a team in and say, 'win a game'.

That's appreciated, but we still want to win the game. So we've got to try as

hard as we can to do well on all fronts.

"Where it'll take us, I don't know. Celtic a few years ago reached this stage

of the UEFA Cup and they found it difficult with domestic games towards the end

of the season but we have to see if we can overcome that.

"We have an opportunity to win four trophies, but you just don't know how

you're going to fare in each of them."