Rangers manager Derek McInnes says his players have earned his trust after their Old Firm double, with Ryan Naderi's goal sealing a 1-0 win at Celtic Park.
The victory followed Rangers' 3-0 win over Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final at Ibrox a week earlier. After a shaky start to the campaign, McInnes' men are now just two points behind the Hoops at the top of the table.
Manager hails trust and clean sheets
McInnes hailed his players' efforts and insists he now has full faith in them. He said: "Trust is the most important thing for me. I need to trust my team and trust individuals within it.
"I don't want to be a manager who doesn't trust my team and I wasn't sure where we were at the start. But slowly but surely, we've got that now.
"I felt calm in the sense that I've felt as though I have a trust with my team over the last few weeks. I think we have developed that trust.
"The clean sheets underpin all that. The biggest drain of confidence is losing bad goals. But the determination to keep the ball out of our net - while playing with real attacking verve - is something we didn't have in the first few games of the season.
"We weren't playing with a panache of swagger. A Rangers team has got to show its teeth at the right time and have a cutting edge, and we didn't have that.
"I think we have that now, albeit we only scored one today. We have good togetherness and a good squad, to be honest.
Victory closes gap at top
McInnes said the win was thoroughly deserved and important in the context of the season. He added: "We'd have heard all about if we'd lost and the gap was stretched to eight points at this early stage. So it was important to close that gap and also - with such a young squad - having the belief and confidence to win a game in this environment.
"We should have scored more and added to it.
"While it's 1-0, Celtic are always going to keep going in front of their own fans.
"Martin O'Neill was trying everything to make something happen for them and you always feel Celtic will get a big chance. Very rarely is that not the case.
"But we defended brilliantly as a team and winning here is another good reference point for us after last week.
"It's still early in the season, only September, and there's 80 odd points to play for, so no-one is getting carried away.
"But to back up last week's performance and result was really big for us."
Five-game winning run
As well as dropping five points behind their Glasgow rivals early on, Rangers also crashed out of Europe. But McInnes has galvanised his squad and they are now on a five-game winning run, having conceded only one goal in that time.
The international break may be coming at the wrong time for Rangers, but McInnes is refusing to get carried away. He said: "Ideally we wouldn't have a break but we worked towards this.
"We spoke before the Aberdeen game a few weeks ago. We said, let's get the club into a semi-final and see if we can bridge the gap in the league.
"That's exactly what we've done but it's been small steps.
"It's another 1-0 victory, which was enough but sometimes one won't be enough.
"We're still not convincing with our finishing and we have to add more goals to our play.
"We need to take advantage of our good play because it can come back to bite you.
"But in terms of the run we're on, it's five wins in a row including two against Celtic and some tough away games at Aberdeen and Falkirk.
"It's eight wins from nine and it doesn't really feel like that.
"We're still in September but we need to keep winning, that's the demand here.
"It's hard to say we're going to do this and that. It's just steps of encouragement for ourselves and the supporters.
"There's something to work with and hopefully we can have a strong campaign."
