Steven Gerrard says Saturday's Old Firm match is another "must-win game" against Celtic after admitting Rangers "shot themselves in the foot" against Hibernian.
The Gers lost ground in the title race on Boxing Day drawing 1-1 with Hibs while Celtic beat Aberdeen 4-3.
The results leave Celtic three points clear of Rangers with a game in hand ahead of the match at Ibrox live on Sky Sports.
"I've never, ever played in a derby that hasn't been must-win," the Rangers boss said. "If we were sitting above Celtic right now, I'd be saying it's must-win".
"So every game against Celtic is must-win. No one should really ever ask a Rangers manager if an Old Firm game is must-win because you are only going to get one answer."
Gerrard admitted Rangers shot themselves in the foot against Hibs by failing to grab a second goal.
Alfredo Morelos scored his 20th of the season midway through the first half but Adam Bogdan kept Hibs in the match and the visitors snatched a point four minutes from time when Darren McGregor headed an equaliser against his former side.
"We've obviously led for the majority of the game and I think we shot ourselves in the foot by not killing the game off," confessed Gerrard.
"I think we had chances to go and get the second but Hibs produced that one moment of quality to really catch us out and take two points away from us.
"It's not a frustration with that as sometimes you have to hold your hand up to quality and I thought the delivery on the goal was good.
"We'll certainly analyse where we've gone wrong on that but I don't think that's the reason why we've not won the game today.
"It's more about us not having the killer instinct to go and finish this game off."
Rangers suffered another injury blow when Connor Goldson had to be replaced in the second half and Gerrard admits they have got little time to pick themselves up before Saturday lunchtime.
He went on: "The mood is low, I've said to the players we have two options here - we feel sorry for ourselves and mope round or we dust ourselves down, recover and get ready for a huge 90 minutes of football.
"I need to know in the next 24 hours who's in and who's not. Who fancies this 90 minutes against our rivals?
"It's the last 90 minutes before they get a huge rest so I need to know who's on board and who's not."