Kenny Miller believes the remaining two Rangers and Celtic matches this season are an ideal chance for Michael Beale to prove a gap to the champions is not huge.
The Ibrox club and their boss have been peppered with criticism in the wake of a League Cup final defeat to Celtic, with a nine-point gap to top spot also existing in the Premiership. Rangers have won all but one of their 12 league games since Beale came in but that moment of dropped points also came against Ange Postecoglou's Hoops during a 2-2 draw.
Former Ibrox striker and Record Sport columnist Miller says retaining the Scottish Cup is paramount this season amid the criticism but insists the gap narrowing on Celtic would be major and lift some dark clouds around Govan. He told BBC: "The performances now are better than what they were pre-world cup. There's 12 league games Michael has had and he's won 11 and drew one, it's really strong, incredible. All the doom and gloom and criticism is coming because they lost the cup final an unfortunately that can happen.
"You want to win the cup at the end of the day and the fact they never plus never performed to the levels everybody knows they can, that is where the disappointment comes in. But they need to dust themselves down as Michael has got more out the players than there was previously.
"It's a not a bad thing to be winning games when you are not top of your game and it is still early in Michael's reign, so there is going to be a lot more to come from this team. Their aim has to be to get this Scottish Cup.
"If they can close the gap on Celtic between now and the end of the season, that would be great. I think the two Old Firms are really big for Michael as it's a chance to show Celtic aren't that much better than Rangers and I am sure he believes that."
