He has enjoyed better weeks. When not deflecting phone calls from Scottish sportswriters, Alexei Mikhailichenko was busy being sacked as manager of Dynamo Kiev. The Ukrainian's crime? A 2-1 home defeat at home to Trabzonspor in the first leg of their Champions League qualifier. Football is a ruthless business in the independent states of the former Soviet Union.

The kind of wealth which hitherto could only have been realised - and often was - in the West has flooded into the Russian league and most notably at CSKA, where Roman Abramovich has offered the club a (pounds) 10m-per-year sponsorship deal through his oil company, Sibneft.

Andrei Kanchelskis, the mercenary's mercenary, has even been tempted to play out his career as the star turn of the Partick Thistle of Moscow, Saturn Ramenskoye.

The Ukrainians have been mindful of the need to keep up with the Joneskis. The Soviet league is strewn with South Americans lured by the promise of roubles. Failure, as Mikhailichenko discovered, will not be tolerated, regardless of popularity.

Rangers play host to Valeriy Gazzaev's team on Wednesday, encouraged by an excellent record against Russian and former Soviet opposition.

However, CSKA are an

altogether different proposition from Alania Vladikavkaz,

Anzhi Makhachkala, Dinamo Moscow and even the legendary Dynamo Kiev team in which Mikhailichenko made a lasting impression on Rangers 17

years ago.

''It is crazy here right now. There is so much money, so much pressure, so much expectation,'' said Mikhailichenko, the latest victim of the trend.

''The Moscow clubs can spend millions signing players. That was unheard of before and that is why it will be a

difficult match for Rangers next week.''

Mikhailichenko watched a recording of Rangers' 2-1 defeat. A diplomatic ''no comment'' addressed the issue of Alex Rae's kick on Serghei Dadu, but he was more expansive on his former club's chances.

''It was very important that Rangers scored the away goal,'' he said of Nacho Novo's strike. ''It is unrealistic to expect no mistakes to be made because the manager has changed almost an entire team from last season.

''It was always the problem in Scotland; the big European games always took place at the start of the season and you had no time to prepare. Having said that, CSKA have changed their manager and, while they have talented individual players, they are not a team. If Rangers make a positive start, CSKA will find it difficult to cope.''

He plays great significance on the return from injury of Dragan Mladenovic, the Serbian midfielder to whom Mikhailichenko made an offer this summer only to be usurped by Rangers. He wonders, quite justifiably, who will emerge from this hastily packaged team as the Gough, McCall, or McCoist of his generation. Rangers of today are as unrecognisable from the big-spending side of the Graeme Souness and Walter Smith eras as Kiev are from the halcyon era which spawned Oleg Blokhin, Oleg Protasov, Igor Belanov, Oleg Kuznetsov and Mikhailichenko.

Qualification for the Champions League is a financial necessity, but it is debatable whether Alex McLeish, with such stretched resources, has the luxury of a trick up his sleeve to secure entry to the group stage. Souness, aware of Kiev's expansive play, reduced the width of the Ibrox surface after the visitors' training session 17 years ago.

The stifling tactics worked wonders and freak goals from Mark Falco (after a horrendous throw-out from Viktor Chanov) and Ally McCoist (a header intended for the opposite corner) ensured Rangers' place in the next round. ''Unbecoming of a British team,'' was Valery Lobanovsky's condemnation of the ploy in the aftermath. However, Mikhailichenko revealed the great man privately expressed his grudging admiration for Souness' improvisation.

''We trained at Ibrox and loved the fact the pitch was so big. It was perfect for us,'' he recalled. ''When we returned the following evening, we couldn't believe what they had done. The pitch was much narrower and while we tried to concentrate, there was no doubt it was a psychological masterstroke.''

The performances of Mikhailichenko and his defensive team-mate, Kuznetsov, were etched in Souness' mind and, after the pair helped the USSR to the final of Euro 88, the Rangers manager signed Kuznetsov for (pounds) 1m, saying: ''Rangers have just signed one of the best defenders in the world''.

In his second match, against St Johnstone, his acquisition sustained a cruciate ligament injury from which he would never fully recover. Walter Smith reunited the Ukrainians in 1990, making Mikhailichenko the most expensive player in Scottish football when Rangers paid Fiorentina (pounds) 2.2m for him.

Inexplicably, Smith deployed the playmaker as a reluctant winger, while Kuznetsov languished in the reserves.

The ''great economy of effort'' cited by the manager for Mikhailichenko's failings were confirmed with one legendary dressing-room tale. Ordered by Archie Knox to warm up, the exasperated assistant stomped back to the dressing-room some time later to ascertain the reason for the hold-up, whereupon the player, hairdryer blowing across his chest, proclaimed: ''Miko warm.''

It is difficult, then, to imagine him possessing the necessary motivation or discipline for management, far less making a decent fist of succeeding his mentor and a coaching master, the late Lobanovsky, in the two years since his death.

Described as the ''perfect footballer'' by Lobanovsky, the Kiev board regarded him as a less than perfect manager last week when they announced the termination of his contract. ''That is football. It does not matter how long you have been at a club, results decide your future,'' he said.

No-one need remind the Rangers manager of this ultimate price of failure.