5 things Rangers must do if they are to stop being the punchline in an era of Celtic dominance

Rangers fans have felt that old familiar feeling of Scottish Premiership heartache as bitter rivals Celtic get set to lift a remarkable 12th league title out of 13 following Saturday's 2-1 reverse at Celtic Park.

Legendary Canadian rocker Neil Young could have as easily been writing about second place in Scottish football when he penned his 1969 album 'Everybody Knows this is Nowhere' with tracks including 'The Losing End (When You're On)' but it's not all doom and gloom for the fans who follow follow their team 'Down By the River' (last one, I promise).

Three defeats and a draw in four league Old Firm meetings, coupled with that disastrous run of five points from fifteen from the start of March, did for Rangers hopes but the fact that Philippe Clement took Michael Beale's mis-firing squad and dragged them anywhere near a title race owed as much or more to the Belgian's tactical nous and training techniques, as it did to any Celtic stumbles. But how can Rangers arrest the trend of east end trophy lifts? Here, Record Sport take a look at just what can be done down Govan way.

Rangers initiated a complete overhaul of their recruitment team by promoting Creag Robertson to director of football operations, while also snagging Nils Koppen from PSV Eindhoven as the director of football recruitment. Koppen's recruitment drive began in the January transfer window, with the additions of Fabio Silva, Mohamed Diomande and Oscar Cortes offering a promising first toe-dip in the transfer market.

While Celtic can make the occasional mis-fire in the transfer market skeet shoot given what they already have in the building in terms of a title-winning spine, Rangers have no such safety net and can ill-afford to make the same mistakes as last