McLeish vows fight to retain trophy despite difficult draw

Craig McLeish has vowed that other teams are going to have "to claw" the Scottish League Cup trophy off St Mirren after his holders were given the "most difficult draw" away to Rangers in the last 16. The Paisley side lost 1-0 at home to Dunfermline Athletic in their final group-stage game, the late penalty meaning St Mirren failed to finish with enough points to be one of the seeded teams in the draw despite still topping their section. "Frustrated by the ending of it," manager McLeish told BBC Scotland. "I don't think it's a penalty, but we kind of brought pressure on ourselves when we don't need to when Dunfermline are throwing everything at us to chase the game. "We need to be smarter in our decisions at that stage of the game." Samuel Ramos also had a goal disallowed when Eseosa Sule was adjudged to have fouled goalkeeper Aston Oxborough. "I also don't see how our goal's been disallowed in the first half," McLeish said. "That kind of changes the game. I don't think there were many clear-cut chances in the game, but when we have a good bit of play and finish it off, I don't see why we are penalised for it. "The frustrating thing is we have thrown away the opportunity to come out as one of the seeded teams for the draw and we've had the draw there and we couldn't have asked for any more difficult draw than Rangers away. "But we are the holders and I've told the boys we are going to fight and make sure somebody has got to claw it off us. "If we are going to defend the trophy, we have to beat big teams and we had to do it last year to win the cup."