The patented Walter Smith Stare will surely have bored into Daniel Cousin when he reported to Murray Park for training yesterday. The Gabon international striker has followed a rich tradition of foot-in-mouth disease common among foreign players in newspaper dispatches to their homeland.

Cousin, since his arrival from Lens, has made little secret of his desire to be anywhere but the Clydesdale Bank Premier League. He has been a sporadic success since his £1m transfer, scoring six goals and performing admirably in Stade Gerland and against Celtic at Ibrox. Thereafter, he has been reticent, taciturn and shown a loner streak to rival the ultimate Rangers enigma, Marco Negri.

The timing of his interview in a French newspaper, in which he accused unnamed players of drinking to excess, could not be worse. Bad enough that Smith must rustle together a team without the perennially injured Jean-Claude Darcheville, DaMarcus Beasley and Nacho Novo. The manager's next-choice striker has shown contemptible betrayal to his team-mates.

Smith may have little option but to absorb the predictable claims of misquoting and afford Cousin an opportunity of redemption, but what message does it send out to Kris Boyd, the club's habitual goalscorer, if he is overlooked for yet another glamour Champions League fixture in favour of a mercenary malcontent?

Cousin also depicted the Ibrox dressing room as a kind of hungover slumber party, claiming "there are chips and pizzas in the dressing room at the end of a match, plus cola and ketchup."

This, according to more reliable witnesses, is utter junk. It has, though, been a popular source of astonishment to Rangers' foreign contingent over the years.

Basile Boli bemoaned a lack of professionalism which, in retrospect, was merely a convenient excuse for his appaling contribution after arriving as a Champions League matchwinner from Marseille in 1994. Sergio Porrini lamented the culinary philistines who had the audacity to put arrabiata sauce on their pasta while, most recently, Paul Le Guen felt compelled to cite the drinking culture among a power-wielding faction for his swift demise almost exactly a year ago.

Smith, though, commands a significantly greater respect among the squad and would simply not tolerate anything less than utmost professionalism from the team who have failed to win a single piece of silverware in two years.

It is no coincidence that Alan Hutton's form has risen sharply since a frank discussion with Smith regarding his future, Barry Ferguson has matured into an occasional red wine drinker, while poker is a greater vice than alcohol for Allan McGregor.

Tuesday nights in Karbon - the fleshpot emporium owned by James Mortimer - is a familiar haunt for footballers from both halves of the Old Firm, preceding their traditional Wednesday off, but it is inconceivable that these high-profile figures would escape unnoticed if they were caught carousing while training the following morning.

Cousin has already sought to engineer a January transfer to the Barclays Premier League. His latest indiscretion will not only confirm his status as a dressing-room outcast but remove any lingering sympathy from the supporters who have yet to be convinced by his commitment and contribution.

Ultimately, Cousin will be a footnote in Rangers' history; a shortlived dissenter in the surly mould of Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Oleg Salenko and Nuno Capucho.

Tomorrow, Cousin will at least have the chance to vindicate Rangers' interest in him in the first place by helping the club overcome Olympique Lyonnais and join Celtic in the last 16 of the Champions League.

For a man more at ease on the cover of the Sunday newspaper supplements with his model girlfriend, prolonged involvement in Europe's elite competition may just make Ibrox fashionable enough for Cousin to hang around.

Smith may have other ideas.