Rangers held in push for second place

Rangers drew 0-0 with champions Celtic in the final Old Firm collision of the Scottish Premier League season yesterday.

After second-placed Hearts were beaten 2-1 by Hibernian on Saturday, a victory for Rangers would have cut the gap to the Edinburgh club to two points and raised their hopes of claiming a Champions League spot.

They now trail Hearts by four points with three SPL matches remaining.

Rangers manager Alex McLeish believed his side should have taken the points.

"I think we should have won, but it's still a point closer to Hearts," he told the BBC. "Hopefully we can get enough to get that second spot."

Celtic striker John Hartson missed the first chance of the game after nine minutes when he mis-cued an attempted volley after a lobbed pass from Maciej Zurawski.

Rangers keeper Ronald Waterreus then pulled off two fine saves within two minutes to keep his side in the reckoning.

He hurtled across goal to flip away a 20-metre free-kick from Shaun Maloney and a couple of minutes later Dutchman Waterreus raced from his line to block Polish striker Zurawski on the left of the penalty area.

Rangers threatened after the interval and Dado Prso pounded into the box before pulling the ball back for Chris Burke to blaze over from close range after 47 minutes.

Three minutes later Croatian striker Prso was denied a goal by a fantastic save from Celtic keeper Artur Boruc who leapt across to tip his header on to the left post.

Celtic manager Gordan Strachan replaced Roy Keane with Japanese midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura, a swap that ignited a late surge from Celtic.

"Obviously when Nakamura came on we were a far better side so there is a lot to think about," Strachan said.

"I think because Naka came on you could see we were better and that's not being derogatory to Roy. But he held on to the ball better in that position."