James Tavernier has said that he understands why he lost his Rangers first team place for the match against Aberdeen and says he is working hard to impress Mark Warburton.

The full-back, a regular starter since his move from Wigan in the summer of 2015, admitted being at fault for both goals in the team's 2-0 defeat at Hearts on November 30. He dropped to the bench for the win over the Dons and saw replacement Lee Hodson cap an impressive performance with a goal.

Tavernier had no complaints and said he knew he hadn't been at his best.

"I know that my performance against Hearts was under normal for me so it was a definite wake-up call," he said.

"You've got to utilise the squad if the team's not performing so if I'm not performing then I don't expect to be in the team.

"I wouldn't want to be in the team if I'm not performing. I've been training really hard this week and hopefully I can get back into the team.

The defender praised Hodson's contribution but said that having cleared his head he was now intent on getting back into Warburton's starting XI.

"He had a good game and he scored a good goal," Tavernier added. "Credit to Lee, he took it with both hands and had a great game and so did the team. It was a great result and a result that we needed. We're just going to move on from there.

"It took me a couple of days to really get my head around [the Hearts defeat]. Devastating to obviously go there and lose and we know we didn't play the best when we got there. The two goals being my fault make it a hard one to take. My family stayed away from me because I needed to concentrate and level my head.

"Now I've learned from it I'm definitely looking at it and getting better from it."