Rangers held to third successive goalless draw

Rangers notched up another goalless draw in the SPL after being held by Aberdeen at Ibrox and slip four points behind leaders Celtic.

Rangers boss Walter Smith: "We started the game very well and had a lot of pressure throughout the game.

"Give Credit to Aberdeen, they defended very well throughout. They set their stall out well and made it very awkward for us to create an awful lot of opportunities.

"We haven't really shown the required sharpness in the last third of the pitch to get the goals that maybe our pressure and play warranted. It's a difficult thing to put your finger on

"We can look at a lot of areas of the pitch and say that we're doing well enough, it's just that little added edge that we need in terms of the last third of the pitch.

"Our boys worked very hard today. The little bit of frustration is that when the opportunities came along, we've just lacked that little bit in terms of taking them.

"Overall, we've got to be disappointed that, after having so much pressure, we didn't see any goals for it."

Aberdeen chief Mark McGhee was understandably the happier:
"We came here with a certain game plan and it's worked out to a degree. We've not won the game so certain aspects of it have worked out.

"It's given us a model of maybe what we should be doing over the next few weeks. For the first time, we've seen a shape that suited us. But obviously we can get it further up the park.

"We thought there might be a goal for us but we've got to be satisfied, it's a decent result. We've not lost a goal again in the league. That's five-and-a-half games since we lost a goal in the league, it's not bad.

"My teams normally attack from the front and defend from the front. It's all very well keeping clean sheets but we must score at the other end and we're not yet doing that as well as we'd like to do.

"We've got a point and we'll take it but we've got to believe that one day, we'll be coming back here as a team that believe they can win here and can actually win here, so it's a starting point."