McLeish still positive as Celtic remain on top

Inverness 1 Rangers 1

Last week the Ibrox outfit climbed above Celtic for the first time in more than a year but yesterday’s 1-1 draw at Inverness meant that the Hoops, who had won 2-1 against Hibernian on Saturday to go back ahead, remained a point clear.

McLeish said: “I don’t think a massive advantage has been handed to Celtic with the one-point deficit. If you had given me that two months ago I would have bitten your hand off. It is not something I would lose sleep over. We will remain positive.”

An early Graham Bayne strike had put Rangers on the back foot but there was still plenty of time for Rangers to go on to win the game when Dado Prso equalised six minutes after the restart.

Rangers had been in UEFA Cup duty in Holland on Thursday night, when a lengthy unbeaten run was ended by AZ Alkmaar, and McLeish conceded that tiredness was affecting a squad that had already been hard hit by the loss of nine players to injury.

He said: “I thought we were flat and lacked an edge. The last two months have been terrific and the players have done superbly to get us into the position we are in. When you get in a position like this you get greedy and we wanted the three points but we just lacked something today.”

Meanwhile, Magnus Hedman admitted he was lucky not to hand Hibs a point on a day when nerves got the better of the Celtic goalkeeper.

In the end he had two-goal hero John Hartson to thank for putting Celtic back on top. The display gave him cause for concern ahead of the Champions League Group F clash with AC Milan.

“I was lucky,” said Hedman. “It was like I had soap in my gloves. Sometimes things go against you and I was disappointed not to handle set-pieces and crosses better. It was disappointing because you always want to keep clean sheets.”

Martin O’Neill has a big decision to make on whether to keep faith with Hedman for the visit of the Italian giants or recall teenage goalkeeper David Marshall.

INVERNESS CT: Brown, Tokely, Dods, Munro, Golabek, Hart (Wilson 81), Keogh, Duncan, McBain (Hastings 64), Bayne, Juanjo (Prunty 90).

RANGERS: Klos, Khizanishvili, Boumsong (Alex Rae 31), Andrews, Steven Smith, Hughes, Ricksen, Malcolm, Namouchi (Davidson 45), Novo, Prso.

Referee: C Thomson.