Hibernian haven't been close to touching Rangers this season. 

However, head coach Nick Montgomery is optimistic that his side is 'getting closer' to laying a glove on the Ibrox club.

At the beginning of the month, Motherwell was the unlikely source of a domestic upset for Philippe Clement's team, who were on rampant form at the time - the opposite of the Steelmen.

Benfica then showed that Rangers can be vulnerable in certain moments when playing in front of an expectant home crowd at Ibrox.

The previous fixtures between Hibs and Rangers have thrown up 4-0 and 3-0 defeats in the league for the Easter Road outfit, with a 2-0 Scottish Cup loss also thrown in for good measure.

Hibs haven't quite guaranteed a top-six slot yet, and will still have their sight set on finishing fourth. And Montgomery would love to see his players give Rangers a bloody nose on their own patch this afternoon.

“Obviously it can be done," he said. "Because Motherwell have done it. Benfica also did it, although they’re a real powerhouse of European football. We know Ibrox is a really hostile environment. You have to believe you can get a result.

"Getting closer? You probably could say that if you look back on the three performances. What we need to do is make sure we’re disciplined. They’re a very good team. But we can compete with everybody in the league, I think we’ve shown that.

“At times, the result probably hasn’t reflected the performance but, ultimately, you can’t concede goals and you have to punish at the other end, which is something we’ve been a little bit sloppy with in big games.”

The Scottish Cup encounter in Leith occurred just three weeks ago, with the hosts going down to nine men after Jordan Obita and Nathan Moriah Welsh's red cards.

Despite it being a tough night for Hibs, Montgomery was encouraged by his team's performance.

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He added: “The time before that we had a very mixed squad and players coming back from loans. And even on that night, we created problems for them.

"But what we didn’t do was keep the ball out of the net. And when you don’t do that it’s difficult to win a game against a team like that.

“But in the cup we played some good football, in that second half we had a lot of momentum. And when we were on top we needed to score. We didn’t and the game fell away from us.