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Steven Gerrard admitted it’s advantage Celtic as he questioned the Ibrox bottle for a title battle.

Ragged Rangers slipped to a 2-1 defeat at Tynecastle on a weekend in which the Hoops moved five points clear at the top of the table.

Gerrard was so frustrated after another Gorgie slip up he admitted he could easily bring in eight players before the transfer window slams shut this week.

He also conceded his side have rarely played as poorly in his 100 games in charge as he refused to sugarcoat his side’s second league defeat of the season and their first on the road.

He said: “Listen, if you want to ask questions about bottle towards me and my players, feel free. I totally understand it, sitting here right now.

“Do I believe they have it? Before today, I would have said I did. Now? I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see in our reaction.

“If I take the emotion out of how I’m feeling right now then, yes, I do feel we’ve got the bottle.

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“That’s my job now, to reset it and go again. Normally after a setback, we react really well.

“But this is the first setback where I’ve been really disappointed in both sides of the game, in and out of possession.

“If there is any criticism or questions like that, we have to take them on the chin.

“Obviously, before today’s game, Celtic were waiting for us to blink. Today we blinked - big time. I’m not sure there will be too many blinks from now to the end of the season.

“We need to try to avoid that level of performance otherwise we might not even be in a title race, never mind competing for the league.”

Gerrard has previously admitted he isn’t looking to make wholesale additions to his squad in the January transfer window.

Exasperated, he added: “On the evidence of today, I’d like to bring eight in. But it doesn’t work like that.

“These players, over the 100 games I’ve been in charge, have more often than not been a delight to work with.

“They’ve had praise for getting it right, so this time we all deserve criticism.

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“We got what we deserved and credit to Hearts - they rushed us off the pitch, outfought and out battled us.

“I don’t think they tore us apart in terms of chance creation.

“But if you talk about the basics in football and what you have to do to earn the right to win a football match, Hearts were better.

“I could pick five, six, seven, eight players I didn’t recognise and who were passengers.

“In a hundred games, I’ve never sat here and said that. But I need to take responsibility because I pick the team and the squad.

“Sure, we’ve got a couple of injuries and suspensions but that team wasn’t too dissimilar to what has been so good for us away from home in the past five, six, seven games.

“Right now, that’s a concern and a worry because the reason we’ve been so good away from home is that we have been the total opposite to what we have shown today.

“I look at our performances at Motherwell, Livingston, Hibs and Celtic Park and they were the complete opposite to what I saw today, both with and without the ball.”

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Rangers took a lead early in the second half from Ryan Kent before Hearts hit back through skipper Steven Naismith and new boy Liam Boyce.

To add to Rangers’ woes, influential midfielder Ryan Jack has been carrying an injury and is a doubt for the midweek visit of Ross County after being subbed at half-time.

Gerrard said: “We got in at 0-0 at half-time, not having played well in the first half.

“We had a problem with Ryan Jack, who has a calf issue, so we made a change in midfield. That summed up the day for us and he will be assessed.

“We changed the right-back because I didn’t recognise Jon Flanagan in the first half and he was on a yellow card.

“We tried to reset the situation at half-time and did really well for a couple of minutes and got ourselves in front.

“The game was there for us to build on that but we fell straight back into what was happening in the first half - second best, not competing.

“It’s probably the first time in 100 games I haven’t recognised us in and out of possession.

“The first goal we conceded was a gift. The ball at the winner came back into the box and we had four or five bodies in front of it to protect the goal but no-one actually moved towards it.

“Hearts probably deserved that in terms of what they gave to the game.”