AS the dust settled in the aftermath of one of the most entertaining and eventful Old Firm matches in many years at Ibrox on Sunday afternoon, the managers and players were asked the same two questions again and again.

Was the draw a better result for Rangers or for Celtic? And who is better placed going into the final weeks of a neck-and-neck Scottish title race? Nobody could really provide an answer. And little wonder.

Rangers performed poorly in the first-half of the cinch Premiership encounter despite the fact every fan in the 50,936-strong crowd was cheering them on and they were trailing by two goals at half-time.

However, Philippe Clement’s men pulled it back to 2-2 in the second-half thanks to a James Tavernier penalty and an Abdallah Sima strike and then Rabbi Matondo made it 3-3 in injury-time to earn the hosts a point.

They can still go two points clear at the top of league table with six matches remaining if they defeat Dundee at Dens Park in their game in hand tomorrow evening.

READ MORE: Cyriel Dessers outlines why Rangers can beat Celtic at Parkhead

Brendan Rodgers’ charges would maybe have taken the result before kick-off. They have, after all, got a home game against their city rivals to come and will fancy their chances of prevailing with 60,000 of their fans behind them. But was it a point gained or two points dropped for the defending champions given that they had led 2-0 and 3-2?

Who will finish first in the Premiership come May is certainly no clearer in the wake of the derby.   

As he looked back on the most insane 90 minutes of a career which has seen him play at the highest level in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Scotland yesterday, though, Cyriel Dessers was firmly of the opinion that it is advantage Rangers.

The Nigerian striker, who had a goal disallowed in the second-half after a VAR check showed that Tom Lawrence had fouled Tomoki Iwata in the build-up, revealed that confidence is high in the Ibrox dressing room because of their gutsy fightback. He is now determined to help his side reclaim top spot.

The National: Rangers and Celtic players square up to each other after the final whistle at Ibrox yesterday“It is difficult to sum up the things I felt on Sunday,” he said. “It was one of the craziest games of my life. That is obvious if you see what happens after 21 seconds, if you see what happens after the first-half, if you see what happens at the end, in the last 10 or 15minutes of the game. It is too much to sum up.

“But I think it is clear that this will give us a massive boost. Hopefully we can win the postponed game and then we go on top. That is what we want. It is close, everybody could see that on Sunday. So we will have to be ready from now until the last game, but I think we are.

“Obviously it is very close. I think on Sunday we saw that quality-wise we are also very close to each other. But, yeah, I hope after Wednesday that I can say that we are on top of the league.

“With the result and performance on Sunday, in the second half especially, I think that will give us a mental boost as well. So I hope we are slightly ahead.”

READ MORE: A classic encounter - but Old Firm 'title decider' decided nothing

It was, no doubt about it, a game of two halves for Rangers on Sunday. But Dessers felt the way that he and his team mates turned things around showed how much they have developed and improved as a unit since Belgian coach Clement was appointed back in October. He is taking positives from the outing, not dwelling on the negatives.

“The manager was not angry at half-time, but he was not happy either,” he said. “He said actually that he didn’t recognise his team and I fully agree with him. All the things we have done so well in the last months I didn’t see them enough. I didn’t think that we played very bad, but we didn’t show it enough in the first half.

“He just said we had to go back to basics and think about all the things that we have been working on in the last months. You see immediately in the second half there is a big difference. If you can turn a big game around like this, not only mentally but also tactically and technically, that says a lot.”

Tempers flared following the final whistle on Sunday and a shoving match between both sets of players broke out on the pitch. Mercifully, order was quickly restored. Dessers felt that it showed how passionate the Rangers players are about deposing Celtic as champions.  

“We know what’s at stake, what’s happening with this game,” he said. “Yeah, there might be a little more tension, but I think that’s part of this game and why we are all happy and hungry to play it and fight until the last second like we did today. It’s a special game and we got through it.”

There are fears that Rangers’ all-important meeting with Dundee at Dens Park tomorrow night may not go ahead as scheduled because of the state of the pitch and the heavy rain which has been forecast for Tayside in the coming days.

There is a possibility the match may have to be moved to a different venue because the top six split takes place after this weekend’s games. But Dessers is concentrating solely on himself and his team.

Asked if he had any fears about the fixture being postponed or switched to an alternative stadium, he said: “No, not at all. We played there before this season when it was really wet as well and we won 5-0. Of course, I’m not saying that will happen again.

“The manager said it best when he said ‘I don’t care if we have to play in the car park, we have to win these games’. We know what it takes to win these games. There’s no talk in the changing room, we just want to go out there and get a result.”