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Daily Record
Daily Record
Sport
Mark Pirie

James Tavernier fires Celtic bullish 'only two points' warning as he brushes off Rangers early season struggles

Rangers skipper James Tavernier insists they can catch Celtic in the Scottish Premiership title race as he looked to move on from a sluggish start to the campaign.

Captan Tavernier and his Rangers teammates put an end to a three game winless run before the international break with the victory over Dundee United coming after heavy defeats to Celtic, Ajax and Napoli. However, the best result for Gio van Bronckhorst's before the league break came in Paisley 24 hours later when the Hoops slipped to a shock defeat to St Mirren.

With league action set to resume on Saturday, The Light Blues can go top of the table - at least temporarily - with a win over Hearts as Ange Postecoglou's outfit are not in action until later in the day. And the Rangers captain was keen to point out that there wasn't a huge gap between the two sides despite some disappointing results in the opening exchanges of the campaign.

Tavernier told Rangers TV : "Obviously the first block of games, we were disappointed with the Hibs game and losing the men and taking a point there. The performance at Parkhead, we didn’t like that performance at all that we put in.

"But we are only two points in it in the league so there are a lot of games to play, it is still early in the season. The boys are raring to go to get it kicked off again.

"The Champions League, we wanted more out of the Ajax game, we wanted to implement our style of play, which we didn’t do. I thought we did that against Napoli and for 60 minutes we played really well.

"Then you go to ten men and it can be a struggle. We conceded three penalties, Greegsy [Allan McGregor] has done wonders to save two out, but that is football at the end of the day.

"We are relishing the task in hand and the games in hand. We are not far away.

"It is only two points and we have only played the first block of the season. There are plenty of games to play so it is down to us to keep our standards and the levels of consistency going through the games to create a real good momentum heading into the games."

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