Miller still injured for Old Firm clash

Rangers manager Dick Advocaat has refused to criticise Craig Brown for handing back an injured Kenny Miller just days before an Old Firm clash.

Advocaat is still feuding with Australia coach Frank Farina for dragging Craig Moore and Tony Vidmar halfway across the globe for World Cup qualifiers that turned out to be embarrassingly easy turkey shoots for the Socceroos.

But he refused to blame Brown for calling Miller up for the midweek friendly in Poland in which the striker was injured within two minutes of trotting out on to the pitch.

Miller was cynically felled by Tomasz Iwan, who was sent off for the challenge that left the young striker with a dead leg.

Advocaat said: "That can happen. I can't blame anybody about that. If you train, if you play friendlies you can get injured. I'm not happy about it but it can happen."

Advocaat added that while he did not blame Brown for wanting to take Ibrox players he felt the timing of the international had been poor.

He said: "I was not happy with it but the whole world was doing it. Craig Brown was saying 'everybody else is playing so why not me?'. I can't blame him about that either.

"But we are all in the final part of the season so I think it is better to forget the friendlies and try to concentrate on the competitions.

"At the end of the season you get another story."

Moore and Vidmar were left out of the squad that travelled to Dundee last week, the first match after their return from Australia.

Both are in contention for the Celtic match and Advocaat insisted it had not been his intention to punish his players.

He said: "There has not been a fall-out between Craig Moore and myself. There has been a fall-out with the manager but not with the players."

Champions Celtic have been boosted by the news that both Chris Sutton and Bobby Petta should be available for the cup final against Hibernian next month. - but they will not be available for the fifth and final Old Firm game of the season.

"Chris had a scan and it did not detect any major damage, which is very good news," said manager Martin O'Neill.

"He might now have that extra week to recover which is good news because we want him available for the cup final. The news this morning was a lot better than Tuesday.

"Bobby is doing a lot better but I would reckon we are maybe looking at a fortnight.

"I'm hoping that he can get a few games in before the cup final."