Alexei Mikhailichenko

was voted one of the top central midfielders in the world at the euros

Bought by Walter and stuck out on the wing

Very poorly utilised

The slightly bizarre thing about our signing and deployment of Miko was that he was effectively bought with the money we received from Marseille for Trevor Steven.

We took in a record £5.2m from that for a guy who had been operating as a classic midfield playmaker for us (he had been a right winger at Everton, but Souness preferred him as a central schemer and he was sensational in that role for us).

Fans were up in arms at Steven’s sale to Marseille, insisting that if we harboured serious designs of winning the European Cup - which at the time we did - we shouldn’t be offloading our best assets.

As a result, Murray sanctioned the Mikhailichenko coup from Sampdoria, a guy who’d won his spurs as a central midfield playmaker (and captain) at Dynamo Kiev and the former USSR.

We spent £2.5m on him, a Scottish record at the time, and it seemed logical he would be a direct replacement for the Englishman only for us to use him as a left winger where he never really looked comfortable.

Smith proceeded to win a double and a treble in his first two seasons at the helm and took us within 90 minutes of the inaugural CL final so we should bow to his better judgment on this, but I always felt we never got the best out of the big guy in utilising him the way we did.
 
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A tad before my time but he came across as a right cock in that 9 in a row autograph hunters book.
 
My old man says we bought a top class attacking midfielder and stuck him on the left wing because he was left footed.
Perfect summation.
He’s not alone here.
Of different quality, but Adam and Fleck, amongst others, suffered the same.
 
No not linking him with the manager role....


Watching some old videos of Rangers and noticed this guy was quite prominent in our midfield for a few seasons back in the day.

Just before my time really - what's the Bears memories of him?

Good player? Any game you remember him standing out?
Outstanding talent.. looked lazy at times but by God he could pick a pass... pretty sure he was so laid back he fell asleep on the bench...
 
No not linking him with the manager role....


Watching some old videos of Rangers and noticed this guy was quite prominent in our midfield for a few seasons back in the day.

Just before my time really - what's the Bears memories of him?

Good player? Any game you remember him standing out?

Being honest, Walter didn't seem to know how to use him. He should have been the focal point of our midfield, we stuck him wide left. He's won the "Overseas Player of the Year" in Serie A before we signed him. That's the same Serie A which had the vast majority of the World's best foreign players at the time.

Strolled Euro88 and was a huge reason the Soviet Union reached the final
 
We played Aberdeen at Ibrox and found ourselves 2-0 down at half time.

Something strange happened (injury in centre mid) and Walter played him central with Durrant running onto his passes.

He ran riot and we won 4-2

Back out to left wing the following week though!

1-0 down, whipped them 3-1, Durrant equalising, McCoist putting us ahead, Miko scoring a superb third.

Was also Spackman's last Rangers game
 
We played Aberdeen at Ibrox and found ourselves 2-0 down at half time.

Something strange happened (injury in centre mid) and Walter played him central with Durrant running onto his passes.

He ran riot and we won 4-2


Back out to left wing the following week though!

This reminds me of the game against Motherwell, they came flying out of the traps and we went one down. Miko put in some shift for the rest of the game, absolutely immense that day.

Found it
 
When we were replacing the Ibrox turf Donald Findlay said a fan could buy the bit that Miko stood on.
 
Was he not stopped by the polis on suspicion of drunk driving.
When he was in court no-one could translate for him so they brought a translator from Russia. The Russian translator could not understand his local Russian dialect, so could not translate 100%. The court case was thrown out and he never was sentenced.
 
In the latter part of his career with us he played a lot in the reserve league and was miles ahead of anyone even with older and heavier legs.
 
Genius when he could be bothered, if he was playing just now he would get slaughtered by the haters on here every week, personally ah thought he was brilliant, great left foot and vision others could only dream about.
 
The game that jumps out for me was against Motherwell at home. It might’ve been a cup tie but they took the lead before Miko scored a double to win the game.

Correct. We were the holders and Phil O'Donnell gave us the lead with Miko scoring twice in second half.

Scottish football was a different ball game then. Pretty sure we sold out the whole Broomloan Road stand.

Much better days.
 
he was a fantastic player, yes he had draw backs and Walter seemed to not want him on occasion, but my god on his game he was brilliant
 
I’m just thinking back. I remember we were in Bucharest and all their supporters were in army uniform. I was there wae my da when I was young. Did he play that night along side kuznetsov and played brilliant or am I thinking of another Europe trip??
 
A genuinely world class centre mid. As mentioned, one of a number Walter didnt utilise properly due to being left sided.
 
I used to go to the games early just to watch his warm up, his skill when knocking the ball about was immense
 
Ian Durrant used to say that Oleksiy Oleksandrovych Mykhaylychenko;) was a terrible trainer and had little English. Mon-Thurs he would come into training and say "Sore leg, sore leg" on a Friday he'd say "Leg OK, leg OK"

As an aside, did anyone else encounter the wee guy who had hitched all the way from Moscow to Marseille just to see Oleksiy play?
 
I remember reading an interview with Archie Knox about his experience with him. He said that his English wasn't great, and the phrase they had to get him to step up the pace and turn on the style was "meep meep Alexei", which Archie as Walter's assistant used to have to stand and shout to him from the touch line.
He said he was such a lazy bugger, 9 times out of 10 the reply was "no meep meep Archie"
 
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