"Anything is possible in football," insisted Darcheville. "Maybe you can score five or six goals, everything is possible. We need to wait and see on Thursday night. Maybe Dundee United can get a good result against Celtic. I think they can."

While three goals were an acceptable return against a hitherto miserly St Mirren defence, Rangers were left to rue a succession of missed chances which could have further eaten into Celtic's goal difference.

"After we scored very early in the game everybody thought it was possible to score a lot of goals, but we only scored three," added Darcheville. "I think the first thing tonight was that we won the game because against Motherwell we lost two massive points. Everybody is now looking to Thursday night."