Burke made his first appearance this season for Rangers against Hearts.

Rangers winger Chris Burke says the Ibrox club will need to sort their away form if they are to have any hope of winning back the SPL title from Celtic.

Burke returned from injury in Saturday's 2-1 defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle, which increased Celtic's lead in the title race to seven points.

"It's not the situation we want to be in," Burke told BBC Scotland.

"We have to more or less win every game if we want to be getting this title back from them."

Burke last played for the Ibrox club's first team in the Scottish Cup semi-final win over St Johnstone in April, when he was carried off with an ankle injury that prematurely ended his season.

In addition to missing the Scottish Cup final win over Queen of the South, Burke also missed the Uefa Cup final defeat by Zenit St Petersburg, having played an important role in both cup runs.

The 25-year-old replaced Charlie Adam for the last 30 minutes of Saturday's match at Tynecastle but failed to make an impact as Rangers struggled to their second league defeat of the season.

Burke admits that Rangers' form away from home has caused them to fall behind in the title race but believes that the club is strong enough to bounce back.

"We know it's going to be very hard, but we're up for the challenge and we have to sort our away form, which is pretty poor," said Burke.

"We've lost far to many points away from home, if we want to win this title, we have to rectify that.

"The game against Celtic will be very, very important, because it will be like a six-pointer, so we're going to have to make sure we pick ourselves up before anything like that happens."

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