Celtic are not unbeatable, insists despondant Miller

01 January 2017 12:54

Kenny Miller insists Rangers are good enough to beat Celtic this season, despite suffering their third derby defeat of the campaign.

The Ibrox side pushed the runaway Ladbrokes Premiership leaders close during Saturday's thrilling Old Firm battle.

Veteran striker Miller even put Mark Warburton's team ahead after 13 minutes, but in the end Celtic's quality told, with goals from Moussa Dembele and Scott Sinclair sealing a 2-1 win.

Gers now trail their bitter rivals - who are yet to be beaten by Scottish opposition this term - by 19 points but Miller reckons his side are capable of upsetting Brendan Rodger's men.

He said: "Of course we can beat them, there's absolutely no doubt about it.

"They are on an incredible run of 20 games with one draw. It's incredible at any level, so it's up to us to beat them.

"We had a real opportunity to do that on Saturday I felt. Particularly when we went 1-0 up in the first half of the game. We probably felt as comfy as you can in an Old Firm game.

"It was disappointed to lose the goal in the way we did."

Dembele lashed the Hoops level with a stunning strike after connecting with a corner provided by Sinclair.

The wideman then tucked home the winner with 20 minutes left, but Miller had an opportunity to square the clash late on.

However, the former Scotland striker miscued and sent an easy chance on to a post.

"It's very tough to take," admitted the 37-year-old. "Personally I don't even know what happened with the miss at the end.

"For the team I thought we put a lot into it, we had two or three chances to equalise, they had a lot of chances as well towards the end to get a bit of daylight as we were pushing forward to try to get back in the game and a good team like Celtic are going to punish you if you give them the openings.

"But the didn't take those chances and we had the opportunity to get back into it and, for me, we should have definitely got the equaliser. I should have got it and we had another couple of decent chances.

"Listen, we've lost the game, we're devastated after what we put into it. We've got to move on from here.

"Personally I'll be looking back at that chance and wondering what went wrong. It's done now and we've got to move on.

"It's frustrating for the fans, the players and the manager because we've put a lot into that, but ultimately came away with nothing."

The defeat ended the Light Blues' proud 15-month unbeaten run at home, but Miller believes his side will respond in positive fashion after the winter break.

"We've lost a proud home record for this team, undefeated in 15 months at home and we definitely didn't want to give it up," he said.

"Going forward we've got to find something . As much as we are disappointed and we'll look back on it to try and improve on things and look at where we are good and bad, but there's nothing we can do about the result.

"We need to make sure when we come back that we are stronger and ready to go again in the second half of the season."

Source: PA