Scott Arfield has issued a reminder that Rangers could top the Premiership come New Year if things go their way this festive period.

The former Ibrox midfielder has highlighted that the title race is far from being over after Celtic suffered their first league defeat of the season at Rugby Park yesterday. A Nat Phillips own goal and dinked finish by Matty Kennedy sealed all three points for Kilmarnock.

The result meant that the gap between Celtic and Rangers remained at just five points after Philippe Clement's side beat Dundee the day prior.

Rangers have a game in hand over Celtic and of course, the sides meet in the Old Firm derby on Saturday, December 30 in what promises to be a powderkeg clash.

Many felt Celtic would run away with the title after taking an eight-point advantage over their arch-Glasgow rivals early in the season. 

However, Arfield says recent weeks have shown why that was never going to be the case.

The ex-Canada international said: "If you looked at it two or three months ago, you wouldn't have thought this could happen but this is Scottish football, this is what it throws to you.

"If you read everything everybody was saying, the league was already done but it's proving to be very different to that. It's all about winning the games and setting up a massive game on the 30th at Parkhead.

"If they win the cup on Sunday, that could give them a real boost. Then they go to Celtic Park on the 30th of this month and, anything could happen, you could potentially go top of the league.

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"That would be a huge boost and it's well within their capabilities to do so. Everybody knows how good Celtic are but if they can get it down to two points, you can certainly get momentum with it.

"It's encouraging that they're picking up results, especially with the number of injuries they've got to key players. Obviously they had a mishap up at Aberdeen but I think they should be encouraged by the form they've got since the new manager came in.

"It seems like they're going for it now and getting back to where they should be. And then when they get more players coming back from injury, that could certainly propel them into really trying to win that title."