STEVEN GERRARD insists Hearts have to be treated as genuine title challengers ahead of their visit to Ibrox on Sunday.
The Jambos are five points clear at the top of the table and eight ahead of Rangers after a superb start to the season under boss Craig Levein.
Rangers suffered their second Premiership defeat against Livingston last weekend but bounced back with victory over Rapid Vienna at Ibrox.
And now Gerrard is determined to close the gap on Levein’s side when they make the trip to Glasgow tomorrow afternoon.
He said: “The league table doesn’t lie and we certainly need to respect Hearts. Craig’s team have done ever so well.
“They are the team to chase right now. They have been very consistent. I watched them last week against St Johnstone and they were very good. They played some really good stuff.
“They have good individuals within the team who can hurt you. We believe their main man up front will be back for them as well, so he comes with a different threat to the team I watched last week.
“They’ve got good players and are a good team. They deserve to be where they are. We need to take maximum points off them to try and bring them closer to us.
“Right now, as we stand, of course they are genuine title challengers. They are eight points ahead of us, so we can’t dismiss Hearts and say they are not title contenders. Definitely not.
“I’ve got respect for all the teams in this league, they all come with different styles and different strengths. So we won’t dismiss anyone.
“But it’s still early days. In my 15 years or so playing down in the Premier League, a lot of managers said you don’t really look at the league table until you are around 10-12 games in. At the same time, Hearts are the team to catch.”
Rangers produced their best performance of the campaign to overcome Vienna in midweek and move top of Group G in the Europa League.
And Gerrard hopes the Light Blues can harness the feelgood factor after an impressive win thanks to an Alfredo Morelos double and James Tavernier penalty.
He said: “The spirit is really good right now, but in fairness it’s been like that since day one.
“The players have created a really good atmosphere. We’ve mentioned it before, but we’ve made one or two alterations to our working environment and you can see the benefit from that.
“Players are enjoying being here. Results like the one we got against Rapid Vienna certainly helps.
“The players are smiling and rightly so. They should have enjoyed [Thursday] night. But that’s now gone, it’s time to move on.”
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