KRIS COMMONS: Just like with Steven Gerrard's Rangers, Giovanni van Bronckhorst has seen his side fall apart after the turn of the year - and Celtic will soon be out of sight in the title race if he can't fix the malaise NOW

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With Celtic dropping points in the lunchtime kick-off at Easter Road, Rangers basically had an open goal to close the gap on their rivals in the title race.

A home clash with Motherwell at Ibrox looked like it would be negotiated with minimal fuss when Rangers raced into a two-goal lead after just 25 minutes.

Bearing in mind that this is a Motherwell team who have been out of form recently. Graham Alexander’s men haven’t won in the league since Boxing Day.

Up against that sort of opposition, and with such a comfortable early lead on which to build, Rangers should have gone on and won by three or four goals. They were on easy street.

Particularly when you consider the high of last Thursday, and the wave of confidence that must have been surging through the Rangers players after knocking Borussia Dortmund out of Europe.

Rangers are in the midst of an awful slump in form and dropped more points on Sunday

After winning 4-2 in Dortmund in the first leg, they slipped to a lacklustre draw away against Dundee United at Tannadice.

What happened yesterday, though, was worse. Rangers were up against limited opposition, had a two-goal lead in their pocket, had the incentive of closing the gap on Celtic... and still blew it.

For Giovanni van Bronckhorst, the numbers since the winter break do not make for kind reading. In fact, they are awful.

Since the Premiership returned in January, Rangers have now played eight games in the league, winning on only three occasions.

They have now dropped 11 points in those eight games, blowing a six-point lead over Celtic at the turn of the year to now trail their rivals by three points.

OK, so they got away with it yesterday in the sense that they didn’t lose any more ground. Celtic were poor against Hibs and didn’t deserve to win.

Ange Postecoglou’s side have got their own issues to deal with after a painful European exit at the hands of Norwegians Bodo/Glimt.

But, for me, it’s Rangers who are the main talking point just now. For all their progress in Europe, the wheels are falling off domestically.

They are spilling points at an alarming rate — and this run of form simply is not sustainable if they are to maintain a title challenge against Celtic.

They have been here before. During Steven Gerrard’s first two seasons, you could almost set your watch by how they would fall apart as soon as we got to the turn of the year.

Manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst must immediately arrest the slide, which is reminiscent of those suffered under the management of Steven Gerrard (right)

That now looks like it’s happening again. This has to be a huge concern for Van Bronckhorst. When your rivals drop points in an early kick-off, you have to capitalise. No excuses.

After half an hour of yesterday’s match at Ibrox, I was planning to write this column on just how good Alfredo Morelos has been recently.

That’s probably been the great success of Van Bronckhorst’s reign so far. The way in which he has helped the Colombian striker recapture his best form. He’s unplayable at the moment.

Let’s not forget, Morelos was being publicly criticised by Gerrard earlier in the season.

His goal return was nowhere near good enough and he looked disinterested.

But the new manager has helped him get leaner and fitter. He is playing as a proper No 9 now, sniffing out chances in the box and leading the line as the focal point.

He absolutely terrorised Dortmund across the two games. Mats Hummels is a World Cup winner with Germany, a proven operator at the very top level, but he must still be having nightmares about Morelos.

Celtic have overtaken Rangers at the top of the table, taking advantage of the slip-ups

Rangers’ first was eventually credited to Motherwell’s Bevis Mugabi but Morelos got another assist and has now scored 10 goals in 15 games since Van Bronckhorst took charge.

But what good is it having a striker in that sort of form when you can’t keep the door shut at the other end?

Van Bronckhorst needs to stop the slide, which won’t be easy given their continued progress in Europe. That could stretch the squad to its limit to keep on going Thursday-Sunday, Thursday- Sunday. The blessing for Celtic is that they no longer have that problem.

They can devote 100 per cent of their focus and energy into winning a league title from now until the end of the season.

Rangers will, of course, argue that they will do the same. But the way in which they’ve spilled points after two huge results against Dortmund suggests a problem with their mentality.

It’s something they need to address as soon as possible. If they don’t, then Celtic might well be out of sight by the time they visit Ibrox for the next Old Firm match on April 3.