Craig Gordon expects Rangers to be challenging for the Premiership title next season, after being impressed by Mark Warburton’s side during Sunday’s Scottish Cup semi-final.

The gutted Celtic goalkeeper cut a dejected figure as he raked over the coals of his side’s Hampden defeat to their bitter rivals.

His mood wasn’t helped by the way that his side failed to get to grips with the fluid passing and movement of a revitalised Rangers outfit.

He has now warned that Celtic will need to up their game next season to win the Premiership title, believing Rangers to be good enough to be considered as serious contenders.

"I think Rangers will challenge us next season,” he said.

“They are a good team, I'm sure they will add a few players too - as we will. But they are a good team.

"They have a good way of playing, a good set up and are very well organised. They'll probably strengthen, so will we, and I think it looks as if it will be quite tight.

"It's a very bad result. We expected to come here and play our own game and in the first half we didn't manage to do that at all, Rangers were the better team.

"If we'd started like we did in the second half and in extra time, we'd probably have won the game.

"We gave them confidence and they passed the ball well. Their formation, their pattern of play is good. They are difficult to play against and we took a bit of time to work that out.

“We got outplayed in the first half. It was disjointed until we got to grips with it. It's the first time we've come across a team playing that style.

"We didn't get to grips with it at the start and it put us in a bad position.”

While not blaming an erroneous decision by referee Craig Thomson for Celtic’s defeat, Gordon admitted he was perplexed when the official overruled his assistant and awarded Rangers the throw-in that led to Barrie McKay’s stunning second goal for the light blues.

He said: "The referee got involved in something when he couldn't see it. There were three players in front of him.

"The assistant made the correct decision and he overturned that.

"But we should have defended it better and it was a strike that, if he hit it another 100 times, he wouldn't put it in there.

"I asked the ref why he made the decision and he felt it was the right call. But when he can't see it, I don't know how he can.

"The fourth official is there too. It's all on that side. There were two officials looking at it and the ref got that wrong.

"But that doesn't lose us the game. We can't get caught up in that. If we take our chances, it doesn't become a talking point.

"I don't want to lay the blame at his door when we were out there for 120 minutes.

"We have to look at ourselves. We didn't lose because of one throw-in decision.

"We are to blame, not the referee.”