Celtic v Rangers: Sasa Papac cup celebrations marred by no contract offer
Rangers full-back Sasa Papac celebrated his club’s 27th League Cup success on Sunday and then revealed that the 2-1 victory over Celtic may have been his last appearance at Hampden.
By Ewing Grahame 11:00PM GMT 20 Mar 2011
The Bosnian is two months away from becoming a free agent and, without so much as an offer from the champions to consider, it looks increasingly as though he will be playing his football elsewhere next season.
“My contract finishes in the summer so maybe this will be my last time here,” he said. “I am open to every option.
“It’s not easy to be in this situation, when you don’t know where you will be playing in two months’ time. I try to stay strong and now I have extra motivation to win the championship again as well.”
Rangers, outplayed by Celtic in their four previous meetings this year, dominated proceedings for most of Sunday’s match.
“It was a massive win for us and we must now try to continue like this,” said Papac. “Celtic were the favourites but we showed from the first minute that we were the better team today.
“Nikica Jelavic has had a big injury and lots of small injuries as well so I am delighted for him that he has scored his first goal against Celtic and that it won the game.”
Club captain David Weir was another player almost certainly making his final appearance at the national stadium. With retirement beckoning at the end of this campaign, Weir at least went out on a high.
“I don’t think about it like that,” said the 40 year-old. “It was just a great game and beating Celtic in a cup final is always special.
“The fact that it was the manager’s last final didn’t come into it. You enjoy winning anyway and this was a cup final so you shouldn’t need any more motivation.”
For Celtic, the post-mortem was filled with rancour and regret. Goalkeeper Fraser Forster blamed “the Third Division pitch” for his failure to keep out Steven Davis’s shot for Rangers’ opening goal.
Midfielder Kris Commons’ assessment, however, was more honest.
“We let the management, the fans and ourselves down,” said the £300,000 January signing from Derby County. “Six or seven of us didn’t turn up today.
“We wanted to do it for Neil Lennon and, in the back of our minds, we thought we could do a clean sweep this year because we have a squad which could do that.
“If we can concentrate on what we do best then I think we’ll win the league but a lot of people need to reflect on this game, digest it and use it as motivation.
“We just couldn’t get our better players into the game. We couldn’t get any forward momentum: we always seemed to be defending corners.
“Rangers kept us on the back foot and, while we had little flutters here and there, we couldn’t maintain them like we usually do.
“Afterwards the gaffer just told us to take this on board and learn from that. He lost cup finals and league titles as a player.
“We have a lot of young players in the side and this is a learning curve for everyone. We’re still top of the league and in the Scottish Cup so the rest of the season is in our own hands.”
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