Scottish Premier League: “Confident” Rangers are “in the mix” before facing “fragile” Celtic.

Celtic have now lost five of seven games under Nancy, most recently on Tuesday when they played away at Fir Park.

While Nancy’s side were chasing the shadows of Motherwell, Rangers were fending off the challenge of St Mirren, who themselves had beaten Celtic at Hampden earlier this month in the League Cup final.

Thilo Asgard headed home Jayden Meguma’s cross before half-time and Emmanuel Fernandes converted Youssef Shermati’s excellent ball inside the box to make it the second goal of the second half.

St Mirren fought back and were frustrated at not getting a point after Mikael Mandron’s goal came after Marcus Fraser missed a penalty.

Ruhl expressed his happiness with his team’s performance, but stressed the need to maintain their good level if they want to compete for the title.

“We closed the gap to three and six points [to Celtic and Hearts]”But that’s nothing in football,” he said.

“It’s about next, next, next. If we can keep going like this, we’ll have a good second half of the season.

“If you get a lot of wins and get a lot of things right, you get to positions where you can play for something.”

And on the trip across to Glasgow to face Celtic, Ruhl believes they are ready for a “huge” test.

“Our faith is there,” he said. “We will go with confidence. It is a big game, but we are ready. It is important that we are strong. If we do that, we will have a great game.”

“It was a good end to the year, and now hopefully we can have a good start to the year.”