Philippe Clement hailed the “amazing” achievement of James Tavernier after the Rangers captain broke the British goalscoring record for defenders in the 3-1 win over Hibernian at Ibrox.

Light Blues winger Scott Wright had the ball in the net in the 21st minute after Hibs keeper David Marshall saved a Tavernier penalty but was penalised for encroachment.

However,  the 32-year-old Gers full-back, who joined the Light Blues in 2015, made amends by firing in his 22nd goal of the season and his 131st in total, taking him past former Preston, Burnley and Scotland defender Graham Alexander, who scored 130.

In the second minute of added time Myziane Maolida levelled, only for Gers striker Cyriel Dessers to put the Gers back in front with a header before the interval.

Substitute Rabbi Matondo drove in a third in the 85th minute to take the Light Blues two points ahead of Celtic at the top of the cinch Premiership.

Clement, who described the victory as “very satisfying”, said: “It’s an amazing achievement, especially as he still has a couple of years to go so he can only make this record bigger and bigger.

“If you speak about the full history of football then you cannot imagine how many good defenders and how many defenders with good attacking qualities who have played the game.

“To be there on top – it’s an amazing achievement and we’re all proud of him. I said it in the dressing room also after the game.

“I don’t too often point out individual players, I don’t like it too much, but I had to do it this time.

“All the players are really proud of him, all the staff and the fans and everybody involved with Rangers. It’s really quite exceptional.”

Tavernier described his achievement as “crazy”.

He said: “If you would have told me when I first jumped into professional football that I would have a chance to become the highest-scoring British defender in history I would not have believed you.

“That is down to all the team-mates I have played with over the years who have helped me through the journey. I will just continue working hard and see how many I can get until I hang my boots up a long way down the line.”

Celtic have the chance to reclaim top spot at Livingston on Sunday before they visit Govan next week.

Clement is confident but does not believe the match is a title decider.

He said: “I’m confident we can win against everybody. Are we at our best now? No. We had all the injuries and some players are not there at their best yet.

“But I also know that we can win that game and we have the quality to do that.

“It’s also not the decisive ending game of the season. We still have eight games to go.”

Hibs boss Nick Montgomery had no complaints about the result.

He said: “I thought in patches we played good football but not good enough today.

“Against quality opposition you have to do the basics well and stop crosses, pick up in the box and block shots at the edge of the box.”

Graham Alexander hit out at his MK Dons side for a lack of commitment in the first half of their 2-1 home defeat to Stockport.

Former Dons player Louie Barry scored his fifth goal of the season for the visitors before the home side equalised through Mo Eisa.

Stockport went back in front on the stroke of half-time though through Nick Powell and this time there was no way back for the hosts.

Alexander said: “The first half cost us. There was no intensity, no speed or no commitment to what we’ve been doing of late.

“We can’t lie to anybody and think we deserved anything from that game today.

“The way we started was really slow, took too many touches and delayed everything.

“If you don’t commit as hard as you have to in professional football, you get beat.

“The game was there for us as a team after last week’s performance, but we just didn’t get going in the first half.

“In the second half, there was an increase in intensity, but we didn’t trouble the goalkeeper or their goal enough to get anything from the game. The right team won today.

“I’m raw because I’m frustrated that a group of players who have done so well so far this season have not got anywhere near the levels we have done in previous games.”

Stockport manager Dave Challinor praised his players as built on their 2-1 win over AFC Wimbledon.

The two wins have followed a sticky start to the season, leaving Challinor delighted with the way his side have bounced back.

“We should take more confidence from the fact of how we went about it,” said Challinor

“Two big wins, especially on the back of what we’d had previously and especially on the back of being a little bit scarred, I suppose, by some of the games earlier on.

“To get those confidence-boosting wins like we have is massively important going into a massive game next week.

“The easiest thing for us today would be potentially to have gone 3-5-2 to match the systems and it becomes who’s better at the system. But we thought we can tweak the system in terms of pushing Powell higher up to become a 4-3-3.

“I’d like to think we can be adaptable. We’ve got the personnel to play as a four and as a three, but it’s ultimately about winning football matches and we’ve won the last two in fractionally different types of that formation, asking different questions of the opposition.”