Samaras orders Celtic to keep going

Georgios Samaras is looking for Celtic to keep in touch with Rangers ahead of their January 3 meeting at Parkhead after Sunday's defeat at Hearts left kept them trailing their Old Firm rivals by four points.

Rangers thrashed Motherwell 6-1 on Saturday to put pressure on Tony Mowbray's side, who were on course for three points at Tynecastle when Samaras gave them the lead, but Michael Stewart levelled from the spot after Gary Caldwell was sent off for felling Jamie Mole in the box and Ismael Bouzid headed the winner 14 minutes from time.

Samaras said: "You can't talk about the gap, there are so many games still to go. The Old Firm game is two weeks away, it is not the right time to speak about this. But of course we have to be close to them, within one win so everything can change."

The striker added: "You never know what is going to happen week-to-week.

"We were disappointed to lose to Hearts but we made lots of chances and have to take the positives.

"We've found our form in the last six or seven weeks and we have created a lot of chances and scored goals.

"We are hopefully going to continue like this in the next weeks and hopefully months, and I think we will have the strength to go to the end.

"Celtic and Rangers are always in the race to win the title and I'm happy that this season there are more teams pushing, like Hibernian, Hearts and Dundee United.

"Lets's see who has the quality to last to the end."