ATthe end of a week in which Alex McLeish's latest Rangers vintage were cruelly exposed, few thoughts will have been spared for last season's cast-offs. But even yesterday's men are entitled to a bright and shiny tomorrow. So have any of the players who left the Ibrox club languishing some 17 points behind Celtic gone on to prove some points of their own?

The evidence is mixed. While the De Boer twins are treated to the luxury with which they are accustomed in Qatar, and Henning Berg has bowed out, Michael Mols returned to his former club Utrecht only for the authorities to serve him with a severe ban for hitting an opponent. But it was those three high-profile thirtysomethings, Egil Ostenstad, Capucho and Emerson - who were brought in to retain the SPL title only for the club to agree severance packages - that are perhaps of most interest. Few Rangers fans will jealously follow their whereabouts, but this season has seen all three attempting to rehabilitate their reputations.

Ostenstad was the last to arrive - on deadline day from Blackburn - and one of the first to leave, remarkably starting only one SPL match in his time in Govan.

Although an achilles injury formed a significant part of the problems at the club, this summer saw Ostenstad join Roy Hodgson at FK Viking, of Stavanger.

The striker had intended only to spend the remainder of the Norwegian season recuperating and working up his fitness, but other injury worries in the squad and the danger of being relegated to the Norwegian second division changed that. He pressed himself back into action for the last six games, of which the club won five, and effortlessly escaped from their strife. The new season, which starts in January, is almost certain to be his last, but there have already been noises about the possibilities of a return to Age Hareide's Norwegian team.

It is all something of a boon for a player who feels all three were singled out for some unwarranted criticism. "It was a difficult year last year and me and a few of the other players got a lot of blame for that, " he said. "And it was maybe too much. I don't regret that I went there, but obviously it didn't work for me, so in the end it was best for me and best for Rangers that me and a few of the other players should find other teams. They have got rid of quite a lot ofplayers in the summer and they seem to have come out stronger.

"I didn't have too many games, but often I would get 15 minutes here and there and that is always very difficult, even when I scored, " he added. "It is very hard to play if you don't get the confidence that you can only get from playing first-team games. It helps if you have the feeling that you don't have to be absolutely brilliant just in order to start the next game."

For all of this malcontent, Ostenstad's relationship with McLeish remained cordial. "I never had a problem with Alex, " the Norwegian said. "I went to see him round about last Christmas and I just asked him if I was going to play and he was honest enough to say that he thought, 'I may not be playing so much', then when I got injured we just agreed that it was better for me to go. Obviously I would have liked more of a proper chance to play in more games, but there were problems all the time last season and we were under pressure all the time. So it was a difficult time for him as well."

As for Capucho, who arrived to great fanfare on a Pounds670,000 transfer fee, and actually scored six goals in 24 games before being consumed amid some lacklustre displays and controversial "diving" rows, the former Portugal international is now slumming it in the Spanish Segunda Division. He moved to Celta Vigo, the club on the Spain-Portugul border who ran Celtic close en route to Seville, yet are now languishing some five points back from the promotion places for La Liga.

Most reports have been favourable, even if the 32-year-old missed two months due to ligament damage, the first such injury of his career. "I am happy in my football again and life in Vigo is very good, it is very different to how things ended up in Scotland, " said Capucho, who almost moved to Vigo as early as last January. "I don't think people were unfair to me in Scotland. I don't really know the reasons why things didn't work out so well. I was definitely a bit surprised to hear that Rangers had been knocked out of the Uefa Cup in the week."

And then there is Emerson. The 32-year-old has resurfaced in Rio de Janeiro. He is at Vasco da Gama, who reside in the mid-table of the Brasiliero, where his strength on the ball has been utilised more effectively than witnessed at Rangers. Like Samson in reverse, this renaissance has come even though the dreadlocks have gone.