St Mirren 0 Rangers 1: Kyle Bartley opened his goalscoring account for Rangers as they claimed all three points against St Mirren in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League on Sunday.

The on-loan Arsenal defender grabbed what proved to be the only goal of the game in the first half, with the win allowing Rangers to move back to within five points of SPL leaders Celtic.

The victory for the depleted Ibrox side also provided a timely boost ahead of their Europa League last 16 clash with PSV Eindhoven on Thursday.

After the game Rangers manager Walter Smith admitted their narrow win was crucial to their title hopes as he bids to steer his side through an injury crisis.

The Scottish champions were without eight players for the trip to Paisley and were only able to name six substitutes, including under-19s striker Kane Hemmings who was on the bench for the first time.

He said: "When you get a situation like the one we have where we are a number of games behind Celtic at the moment, it's important to get the win. From our own point of view, we have injury problems at the moment.

"As far as the league is concerned, today's game and next Sunday's game are vitally important for us in the sense that, after that, I would hope to see quite a number of our injured players coming back.

"So it was good to get a win today."