Here's what Cyriel Dessers had to say on Rangers' Old Firm defeat, looking ahead to tomorrow's meeting with Dundee.

Your reflections on the game?

We thought about it, feeling the emotions of it [after]. It goes fast at this football club and we have another game tomorrow.

How big is the gap between Rangers and Celtic?

I think that’s a really good question. If you look at the four games separately. I think they were really close every time. Games where we deserved more than we got. That’s also football, we were unlucky sometimes with some decisions and key moments. It’s up to us, we should’ve done more in these games. Overall we took more points against the 10 other teams than then but if you see the table, these games make the difference this season.

Is that a mentality thing?

I think it will be a mixture of certain things and aspects, we have had key moments and decisions of referees and from ourselves. All these things add up. Everyone can see both teams are really close. These key moments make the difference and for us unfortunately they haven’t fallen our way.

What can give fans hope for the Scottish Cup Final?

Like I said before, the teams are close on quality and in a lot of aspects. We need to find new energy after a difficult weekend but I think we have that in us and have everything to play for in the cup final. We know what we can do in the cup final and where we can hurt them, it’s going to be a mental thing as well to overcome what we had last week. This team has experience and we need to take that. Losing is unfortunately part of sometimes being at a big club. To show you are a champion you need to react to losing, go again hard and hit the button ahead of the final.

Can you understand why fans have lost belief?

In certain points yes because it has been a crazy season. We spoke about that at breakfast. In August it seems like years ago but it’s only 10 months. It has been a crazy season with ups and downs. You can’t say we’re a bad team, we are in two cup finals. We came back in the league but unfortunately, it’s going to be difficult from now. I don’t think we are a bad team but it will be important in the cup final to give this season some extra colour and finish in a positive way.

The issue is, you can’t beat Celtic?

There is one more game against Celtic to go and a really important one, important for us and our fans and all who support this club. It’s in our minds we want to show our fans we can beat Celtic and win the cup final.

Would winning two trophies make it a successful season?

Right now it doesn’t feel like that. I don’t want to think about if and when. Maybe when you look back after summer you could say we had a good comeback and were close in the league… But this cup final will be huge for us to give the season a positive ending.

Has the manager encouraged dialogue after the game?

The manager spoke about the game and said the right things, I don’t think there was much to say between players because we are hurting and wanted to do better. We know we need to push the button and switch for tomorrow, we can’t just let it go now. With ice focus on the cup final to perform this week and be ready for the cup final. Regarding John this is part of football, John has been so important this season and we don’t blame him. We support him and hopefully we can see him back on the pitch.

Is it unfair to question the team’s mentality?

I think if you look at our games you cannot blame any player they didn’t put everything in. Even the game on Saturday with one man down we kept fighting and played two games at Parkhead and almost 90 minutes played with a man down. We kept creating chances, maybe not big chances, but we kept going and I think that says a lot about the team’s mentality. We want more, we want better and to win. But the mentality is good and we have bounced back so many times this season. I don’t think that’s the problem for this team.