Rangers manager Walter Smith has a number of players unavailable for tonight's game against St Johnstone in the second Co-operative Insurance Cup semi-final. The winners will meet St Mirren who saw off a lacklustre Hearts at Fir Park last night. Kenny Miller, DaMarcus Beasley and Maurice Edu are all still out of action and will not play at Hampden tonight. Kris Boyd is continuing on his road to recovery from a hernia operation and is expected to be fit enough to take part in practice matches next week with a view to returning to first team action later this month. Ahead of the semi final, Smith congratulated Celtic for giving the whole of Scottish football a lift by signing Robbie Keane in a dramatic deadline-day swoop. But Smith is hoping the arrival of the Tottenham striker on loan until the end of the season does not give their great rivals too much of a boost. The signing of Keane has captured the imagination the most out of all the transfer deals done and Smith said: "There have been a lot of changes and Celtic have to be congratulated for making the changes there. They have brought in some good players and that will be a benefit to them. It's obviously raised the interest in Scottish football again, with a player like Robbie Keane coming here. That's a good thing for our football overall - although I'm not too sure if I'm that keen on it being good for Celtic."

St Johnstone manager Derek McInnes also has a new player to boost his side. Defender Mark Connolly, on loan from Bolton, will be put straight into the squad for the trip to Hampden, with stand-in captain Jody Morris expected to be passed fit to play after a pelvic problem. Kenny Deuchar, the game winner in Saturday's morale-boosting win over Hearts, has a back and hip problem, and midfielder Chris Millar has a slight groin injury but McInnes is hopeful that both should be available. Steven Milne believes St Johnstone's promotion to the SPL has proved they are capable of pulling off a shock against Rangers. The Perth side will be playing in their fourth semi-final in only three years, but it will be their first since returning to the top flight as First Division champions in the summer.

Previous defeats to Hibs, in extra-time in the same tournament three years ago, and in the Scottish Cup to Celtic in 2007 and on penalties to Rangers 12 months later have been difficult to take for a team coming so close so regularly to a rare final appearance. However, Milne believes their performances since making the step up in the league are evidence that they can now go one step further in the cups. He said: "I think you can draw on previous cup games. We draw Rangers just about every year and we've always done well against them. We've never been beaten by a few goals and hopefully we can turn it around this time. It probably does give us more confidence that we're going into this game as a Premier League team. We didn't think we needed it when we were in the First Division, we always felt confident going into any game we played because we had a winning mentality. But, now, I think we've shown in this league that we're a Premier League team and we can compete against anybody."