RANGERS manager Steven Gerrard admitted yesterday that slip-ups from rivals Celtic and Hearts fired his players up ahead of their thumping win over St Johnstone, and he has told his men they have to keep taking advantage of such opportunities if they are to get to the top of the table.

An impressive display at Ibrox saw Gerrard’s men romp to a 5-1 win over Tommy Wright’s beleaguered side, and Gerrard has challenged his men to maintain their ruthless streak.

“The results over the weekend – not just Celtic, but Hearts as well – gave us a bit of a spring in our step,” said Gerrard.

“When we are presented with opportunities like that we have to make sure we’re ready to pounce. That’s especially if we’re off the top. Any time someone above us drops points we have to capitalise on that and I thought we did. We were very strong and played some really good stuff.

“When I took over I knew it would take time. But at times today we looked really dangerous going forward and could have scored a couple more goals. We rattled the woodwork a few times but that’s the way we’ve got to be at home. When teams come here we’ve got to give them a difficult 90 minutes.

“Out of possession, we were good too – we weren’t lazy with everyone buying into the fact we had to match St Johnstone early on.

“We had to fight and battle and once we won that we knew our quality would take over.”