Rangers midfielder Andy Halliday insists that he and his team-mates have to challenge Celtic for the Scottish Premiership title next season.
The Scottish giants ensured promotion from the Scottish Championship with a 1-0 victory over Dumbarton at Ibrox on Tuesday evening. James Tavernier scored the encounter’s solitary goal during the second half, the 24-year-old tapping in a Jason Holt cross from six-yards.
The win sees the Glasgow outfit 17 points clear of second-placed Falkirk at the top of the table with four games remaining. A third promotion in four years for The Gers completes a rise back to the first division, a league they have won on 54 separate occasions, after the club were jettisoned to the fourth tier of Scottish football due to financial meltdown in 2012.
Rangers hope to challenge unrivalled Celtic success
While Rangers have been enduring trips to lowly Alloa, Berwick and Elgin amongst others, rivals Celtic are on the verge of obtaining a fifth successive Premiership title. The two meet later this month in the Scottish Cup semi-final but boyhood fan Andy Halliday is looking further forward than a potential trip to Hampden Park.
Halliday stated that the Light Blues have “got to be challenging for the Premiership title; it's as simple as that.”
"And that's not me being arrogant or disrespectful to Celtic at all,” he continued. “But you can't be at a club like this and be happy with second."
Incredible season not over yet for Warburton's men
Rangers have lost just three league games throughout an ineffable season under the management of Mark Warburton, scoring 83 times and conceding just 27 thus far. The Englishman has also guided his side, whom he joined after the manager parted ways with Brentford last May, to the aforementioned Scottish Cup final and a Challenge Cup final against Peterhead.
"It is an incredible achievement.” Proclaimed former Middlesbrough midfielder, Halliday. “Obviously, it [the league title] was our main goal since the start of the season.”
Halliday then said that “it's full steam ahead to the end of the season” because they “still have a lot of big games and then into the Premiership”, where he says the club belong.
"I think we are getting better and better."