Gordon sure Rangers have too much to do in race for second place

HEARTS goalie Craig Gordon put aside the disappointment of derby defeat today to insist he remains convinced Rangers have given themselves too much ground to make up in the chase for the Champions League.

The Tynecastle side have occupied second spot in the SPL table for much of this season but gave the Ibrox side a chink of hope on Saturday as they lost out to city rivals Hibs 2-1 at Easter Road.

Rangers managed to close the gap on Hearts to four points with three games remaining, courtesy of yesterday's goalless Old Firm derby draw at Celtic Park. But, with trips to Easter Road and Rugby Park still to come for the Govan side, plus that final-day clash with Hearts at Ibrox, Gordon is convinced that Alex McLeish's men will drop more points before the end of the season.

More importantly, he knows that if Hearts win all of their remaining games there is still nothing that Rangers can do to stop them. Said Gordon: "We know it is still in our hands. We've still got the gap and I am sure Rangers will drop points. I don't think there is a team in the top six capable of going to the end of the season without dropping something along the way.

"We are still right in there with a great chance of the Champions League place and I'm sure Rangers would much rather be in our position than their own.

"It is up to them to catch us and we are still very confident.

The goalkeeper's disappointment at Hibs' opening goal was plain to see on Saturday as he ran fully 30 yards to reach whistler Charlie Richmond to protest after Derek Riordan's strike, believing that Steven Fletcher should have been flagged for offside.

The Hearts goalkeeper felt that Fletcher had run along his line of vision just as Riordan was about to pull the trigger and therefore impaired his chances of saving the effort. Gordon feels that match officials' decisions are usually weighted against goalkeepers and he was, understandably, still furious with the decision after match. He added: "I felt that he was interfering with play. He ran across my line of vision and if he had touched it he would have been offside - I'm waiting for him to touch it, though, maybe he doesn't, but it still ends up in the corner of the net.

"I would have made an effort for the first ball if he hadn't been in my line of vision so for me it has got to be offside. The linesman didn't feel the same way, he said it was his call and he didn't think he was interfering with play. I don't think the referee even noticed to be perfectly honest. I don't think he thought there was anything wrong with the goal but that's just the way it goes, I don't think linesmen and referees tend to look at these things favourably from a goalkeeper's point of view.

"If you can't see the ball when someone is about to kick it, then you can't dive the right way - that's just the way I see it, but they obviously see it differently.

"If someone is standing right in front of another player blocking their view then it seems pretty clear-cut but I've got nothing against the referee or the linesman and I shook their hands after the game. It was their call, that's the way they saw it and that's fair enough.

"The goal stood and that was disappointing from my point of view - but who knows, maybe we will get the decision next week."

Gordon played behind a makeshift defence at Easter Road, Christophe Berra, Lee Wallace and Ibrahim Tall joining Robbie Neilson at the back. The announcement of the team before kick-off had raised more than a few eyebrows, Andy Webster and Edgaras Jankauskas omitted from the squad altogether, while Julien Brellier and Rudi Skacel were named on the bench - and the 23-year-old goalkeeper admitted that he regretted Hearts not being able to field a more experienced side for such a crucial match.

However, Gordon insisted that the players brought in to fill the gaps left by Steven Pressley, Jose Goncalves and Takis Fyssas had played well. Indeed Berra was one of Hearts' better performers and Gordon continued: "We didn't manage to put out as experienced a side as we have for most of the season, a few boys had to come in on Saturday for different reasons and they did well. I thought we played well as a whole in the second half but I thought we were poor in the first.

"We were maybe lucky to go in at half-time at one-each but in the second half there was really only one team in it but they got a goal against the run of play - a bit like we did in the first half.

"Losing another goal with just ten minutes to go meant we didn't really have enough time to get it back."

Midfielder Paul Hartley has been in inspirational form for the Tynecastle side this season but even he was unable to turn Hearts' fortunes around in an unusually lacklustre first-half performance from Ivanauskas' men.

Hartley admitted that too often in that opening 45 minutes Hearts were second to the ball and that their slow start gave them an uphill task. He said: "It was a massive disappointment for us to lose, especially as it was a derby. I don't think we performed, we didn't get out the traps too well and Hibs probably shaded it.

"I think the first half really killed it for us and we were probably fortunate to get the goal just before half-time.

"We are disappointed but we have still got a lot to play for, we're still ahead of Rangers and in the driving seat and we've got another three high-pressure games coming up.

"We just didn't play well enough, it's as simple as that. If you look at the game in the first half, we were second to every ball and we just didn't perform."

Taken from the Scotsman