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WALTER SMITH has urged Rangers to channel their title frustrations into stopping Celtic sealing a tenth straight title.

Neil Lennon’s side were handed the Scottish Premiership crown last week after clubs deemed it impossible to play out the remaining top-flight fixtures due to the coronavirus crisis.

The Parkhead side were 13 points clear at the Premiership summit, but some connected with Rangers have questioned the credibility of the triumph, suggesting that the season should have been played out in full.

But Rangers legend Smith, who won nine-in-a-row during his first spell as manager at Ibrox, believes it is about time his former club accept the decision and point their full focus on catching up with their rivals next season.

He said: “Hopefully spur them on.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that for Rangers, they’ve had a lot of years now where Celtic have been uppermost in the league now.

“They’ve had a really good team and managed to win nine championships in a row – well, eight championships in a row and now this one.

“I think we’re in strange times. We’re looking at all the smaller countries in Europe have decided to finish their leagues, and do the same thing as we’ve done in Scotland.

Therefore I think whether we like it or whether we don’t, it will we just have to accept it get on with it.

“And hopefully Rangers, who have been making progress under Steven Gerrard over the last couple of seasons, can get together and try and prevent Celtic getting 10.”

Quizzed on whether everyone at Rangers would be coming together to try to stop 10-in-arow, Smith told Sky Sports: “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.

“Everyone will do that. When we were at nine-in-a-row, Celtic won the tenth, they celebrated and we were disappointed.

“They had great celebrations for one-in-a-row – that was it. That’s the way it is in Scotland. That’s going to be that way next season.

“And Steven and the people that run Rangers will know that and hopefully they can have the same reaction as Celtic had to Rangers in doing that.

“But you can’t take away from the fact that Steven’s doing a really good job.

“Rangers haven’t been in the circumstances they were in a lot of the time when I was the manager and when Graeme [Souness] was the manager.

“We got a great deal of help from the board.

“The board are doing a really good job helping the club recover from unprecedented times for Rangers and everybody’s trying to pull together so hopefully they can get it together for next season.

“They’ve shown this season they can challenge, they just had that blip after the break, and hopefully next season that challenge can bring a tangible result for them at the end of the day.”