Robbie Neilson has claimed his Hearts side were in the ascendancy in the final period against Rangers and the home side were time-wasting and happy with the narrow win.
The Jambos arrived at Ibrox on the back of two league wins on the trot and faced an under fire Giovanni van Bronckhorst and his Light Blues after they suffered a shock weekend defeat at St Johnstone to fall seven points behind Celtic at the top of the Premiership table with the result sparking a furious reaction from fans towards James Tavernier in Perth.
Malik Tillman proved to be the Ibrox hero as his strike secured a much-needed three points for Rangers as they bid to get back on track. They face St Mirren on the road this weekend before the World Cup brings the Premiership to a halt for five weeks. Last night's results leave the Ibrox men seven points behind the Hoops while Hearts are in fifth - just two points off Aberdeen in third spot.
READ MORE: Hearts narrowly lose out at Rangers as Premiership becomes congested - three things we learned
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Speaking after the narrow defeat in Govan, Neilson told the BBC : "I was proud of the work-rate, I thought [the players] worked extremely hard. Defensively I thought we were sound.
"You know, coming through to Glasgow now, it's not a daunting place for us. It's a place where want to try and impose ourselves, and I thought today we did that.
"There were periods in the game when we were on top and there were periods when Rangers were on top.
"I think it shows how far we've come that in the last 20 or 25 minutes, there was time-wasting going on. Rangers were happy to take that 1-0 and we were the team that were in the ascendancy."
He continued: “I was unhappy with the three minutes at the end. When we are holding on to a 1-0 lead you get seven or eight minutes. When you come here it’s three minutes.
“There was a lot of time-wasting towards the end of the game by Rangers, which is something I have not seen here before but the referee decided he would just look at the substitutions. I thought towards the end of the game we were in the ascendancy, Rangers were time-wasting, I was hoping for a bit more.”
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