It is little wonder that the area of his team that has occupied so much of Walter Smith's time - or perhaps, more accurately, preoccupied those of us who enjoy asking the Rangers manager questions - is his attack. With Kris Boyd currently rampant for Rangers, and Kenny Miller still a controversial Smith signing, there is no part of his team that arouses so much intrigue.

Boyd is a certain starter against Celtic at Ibrox today - if Smith chose to omit him from a sixth successive Old Firm game he would be strung from the Ibrox rafters with piano-wire - and the debate around the striker is remorseless. “I don't think so much newsprint has been used on any other player,” Smith said yesterday.

As for Miller, Smith blithely ignored public edicts from a number of Rangers supporters groups, earnestly warning against such a move, to bring the striker back to Ibrox last summer. The former Hibernian, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Celtic and Derby County striker looks certain to partner Boyd at Ibrox today in an attack that Smith appears to have settled on as his best option these days.

A large section of the Rangers support were still actively booing Miller over his former Celtic status when the wind suddenly got trapped in their throats as the striker struck twice to help Rangers to their 4-2 win away to Celtic in August. As well as being an amusing moment, it was a confirming afternoon for Smith and his judgment as a Rangers manager.

“I think we were all pleased that day, and not just for Kenny Miller,” Smith said. “It was just one of those things - a player getting a goal where he used to play. So long as Kenny keeps it going until the end of the season, we will be happy. If I didn't think he had that mental strength I wouldn't have brought him back in the first place.”

Smith expressed again his view that Miller brings a dynamic and a bustle to Rangers in the final third which his team - despite nearly winning the league and reaching the Uefa Cup final last season - had previously lacked. His decision to sign Miller from Derby, ten months after he had left Celtic, was also partly due to his experiences as the manager of Scotland.

“I think we needed more movement up front and when I was with the national team Kenny was always excellent in that regard,” Smith said. “He always led the line well and was available to his team-mates. So when I had the opportunity I had no hesitation in bringing him back. I rate him as a player and since he has come back he has settled into a partnership that has done very well.

“I have always liked Kenny as a player. If I could have, I would have brought him back to Rangers earlier than I did.”

And Boyd? This is still a complex subject for the Rangers manager. Smith is now playing Boyd with an eager regularity, and is being rewarded with shoals of goals. But it remains the case that Smith was slow to be convinced about the striker, such as when he chose not to select him for either of Rangers' two - and ill-fated - Champions League qualifying ties against FBK Kaunas in August. The striker has had to grimly bide his time before now having an almost automatic-starter status.

“Kris has worked really hard in terms of fitness this season but, as I said last season, him missing out was as much to do with how I felt about the team overall as about him as an individual,” Smith said. “We will see in time whether that was right or wrong.”

Quite apart from the issue of being selected for Rangers has been Boyd's self-imposed exile from Scotland. On that subject, Smith continues to be cool about playing the role of diplomatic emissary between the striker and George Burley, the national manager, despite many urging him to carry out such a task.

“It was Kris's decision to step back from the Scottish squad and it is up to him whether he wants to enter it again,” Smith said. “I am quite happy for him to do whatever he feels is the right thing for him.”

The Rangers manager goes into today's match with his team more or less settled in his mind, except over the question of the fitness of Madjid Bougherra. Smith hopes to have the defender back from injury but Bougherra's chances remain 50-50.

“Madjid is our only real worry, after our longer-term ones,” Smith said. “His thigh is still giving him a bit of trouble. I think he will be touch and go, but even then you have to consider that he hasn't played for three or four weeks now.”