ANDY Halliday last night admitted that Rangers players have the remaining nine games of the season to save their Ibrox careers.

However, Halliday has refused to accept that his side can’t beat their city rivals Celtic, who are eight points clear at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership, to the Scottish title.

Steven Gerrard’s side were booed off the park on Tuesday night after being beaten 2-0 by Aberdeen in the William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-final replay.

The disappointing result means the Govan club are now once again unlikely to lift silverware in the 2018/19 campaign.

And Halliday, who wasn’t involved in the defeat to Derek McInnes’s men, knows unless there is a stark improvement many of the players risk being moved on in the summer.

“You have to realise you are playing for your future when you have let the club down,” he said.

“You have expectations to bring trophies back to Rangers. When you have let them down you need to prove that you belong to by here. We have got nine games to do that.

“I am talking that way because I feel that way myself. I feel that everybody should feel that way. If you haven’t lived up to expectations then questions are going to get asked.

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“It is in your hands to try and prove people wrong and try and secure that future. If you want to be at a big club you have to live up to expectations.

“You can go to a smaller club where you can maybe win one game and draw one game and don’t need that consistency. I am saying that because I feel that way.

“Also, it is a huge motivation. Thankfully, it is in our hands to try and achieve that.”

Rangers will try to bounce back from the Aberdeen result with a win over Kilmarnock at home in the league this afternoon.

Halliday, who could come back into the side in the absence of the injured midfield duo Scott Arfield and Ryan Jack, insisted that they could still challenge for the Scottish title.

“We also need to realise that these nine games are still big games, we have still got a lot of play for,” he said.

“We are very realistic and know that Celtic are heavy favourites for the league. But we have got nine games to try and close it and make it as tough as possible for them.

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“You certainly can’t give up, it is as simple as that. Like I said, Celtic are obviously favourites. But if we put a run together . . .

“We haven’t managed to do that this year. We have had some big performances and good results, but we haven’t put those five, six seven wins together to make it close enough.

“But we have got nine games so we have got an opportunity to do that and see where it takes us.”

Halliday added: “We have got to look at those two fixtures (against Celtic) as a positive. If you are eight points behind then that is two opportunities to claw back six points.

“It forces our hand. We have to win those games, it is as simple as that. But we are very lucky that we have got them coming up.

“It is up to us to try and turn our form around and turn our fortunes around. Tuesday wasn’t good enough. We have to hope that the real Rangers turn up in those games.”