Ally McCoist today refused to blame Rangers £15million Champions League exit on the club's summer transfer failures.

As he surveyed the wreckage of last night's shattering defeat against Malmo, the Rangers manager said he didn't feel "let down" by the fact only three new arrivals have been landed since Craig Whyte became owner.

A series of failed bids have been submitted for other players, leaving McCoist to soldier on mainly with the slender squad he inherited from Walter Smith.

Despite needing half a dozen new players, Lee Wallace and Juanma Ortiz were the only new faces facing Malmo as Rangers drew 1-1 to go out of the third qualifying round 2-1 on aggregate, with Dorin Goian injured.

Rangers will be in tomorrow's draw for the Europa League play-off round, but supporters have become increasingly unhappy about the lack of signings and the obvious need for new blood.

McCoist's resources were so thin in Sweden that he had to turn to 19-year-old Kane Hemmings when Rangers were on a fruitless late attempt to score the second away goal which would have taken them through.

The trio of new signings will prove their worth in time, but Rangers' numbers are actually down on last season given that El-Hadji Diouf, Vladimir Weiss, Kyle Bartley and Richard Foster are no longer around, and Kyle Lafferty and David Weir are out injured.

"We could always do with more players, there is no doubt about that,' said McCoist after the Malmo knockout.

"But I have made the point before and I will keep making it: we have some great players at Rangers at the moment.

"It is our job to get them help. I hope people would agree that we showed in long spells in Sweden that we are not a bad side.

"In fact, we are better than that. Far better. But I have said all along that we need more players.

"I would take our starting line-up – from one to 11 – against most teams. But we need to give those boys help.

"I don't feel let down though in that department because the transfer window does not close until August 31.

"I can totally understand the argument that we should have had more in [for this qualifying tie], but we have been trying to make signings.

"It has not been easy and we have not made as many as we would have liked.

"We will keep searching and trying to bring new talent to Rangers."

McCoist was let down by two of his senior players – Steven Whittaker and Madjid Bougherra picked up red cards when the manager badly needed discipline – and the nine men couldn't see out the win they needed against the Swedish champions.

Before the night was out bookmakers had sent out press releases saying they were offering as little as 2/1 that McCoist would be out of his job before the end of 2011.

That's the merciless pressure on McCoist now, because he'll be the one who eventually is made to pay if Rangers don't start delivering signings and better results.

He needs Whyte and his team bring in new bodies. Rangers fans are becoming more and more vocal about the fact their club is bidding below the asking price for its transfer targets. It would be totally understandable if McCoist shared that frustration but, if he does, he's not in a position to talk out about it.

The McCoist-Whyte relationship has to be rock solid if Rangers are to deliver the results they both need.

But last night will surely empower the manager to stress yet again that he needs a bigger and better squad than the one which has won only one out of its first four matches so far this season.

The imminent sale of Bougherra to the Qatar club Lekhwiya will raise funds, although maybe not the £3m that's been generally reported, but it's still more money coming in than Rangers have spent on any single player this summer.

It needs to go on a straight replacement because as things stand McCoist has no high quality or young partner for Goian in central defence.

Whyte may feel he knows how to run Rangers, but he'll need to be around the club for 30 years to understand it like McCoist does.

It's McCoist who has a feel for the way things should be done at Rangers, and McCoist who has a feel for the sort of bids they need to start submitting to convert targets into actual signings.

"I've been involved at this club for a number of years and you have to experience the highs and the lows," said McCoist.

"This is clearly a real low for me. The end of last season was a massive high and this is painful. But I would not swap it. It is where you want to be.

"You don't want to be at a club where mediocrity is accepted and we won't accept this. We'll pick ourselves up."