Reid felt his side merited a point against Rangers

Hamilton manager Billy Reid admitted losing a late goal in the 2-1 defeat by Rangers was "gut-wrenching".

Kenny Miller came of the bench to score a last-minute winner for the visitors.

"I'm gutted for the players. They put so much effort into it and looked, at times, like the team in the ascendancy," Reid told BBC Scotland.

"We deserved a point. I'm not going to say we did enough to win the game, but I didn't think Rangers did enough to win the game. But they got the goal."

The 2-1 loss means Hamilton have only three points from their opening four Scottish Premier League matches.

"You've always got to be on your guard against the Old Firm, the amount of times they score late on, and they've done it again," said Reid.

"Obviously, it was a mistake in the middle of the park, which was unfortunate for us.

"You always know when Kenny Miller comes on, he's a threat. He's been scoring freely and all credit to him, he got the chance, he stuck it away and they've got the three points.

"I was a wee bit disappointed to go in 1-0 down at half-time. They scored a fantastic goal, but we worked the goalkeeper a couple of times. We got back into the game with a bit of a deflection.

"To be on the park and put so much into that and achieve nothing is gut-wrenching. We've come so close to taking things, especially from Rangers, and got nothing."

However, Reid was heartened by the performance and feels the team have improved a lot since their opening two SPL games.

"We've come a long way since the couple of weeks when we lost 4-0, 4-0," he added.

"There's a much better shape about the team. We're starting to get players back, we've added one or two.

"Overall, we've come a long, long way and we're certainly moving in the right direction.

"We've worked really hard and, as a group, we're bonding together.

"We've got Alex Neil, Mark McLaughlin and David Elebert to come back and it'll make us stronger again, so I'm pretty pleased in terms of where we are, in terms of the squad and things will improve here."

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