Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, conceded his side were a long way from their best as the champions crept to within two points of Celtic with a game in hand.
The Ibrox side needed a late own goal from Tim Clancy to secure the victory. Kilmarnock felt they should have had a second penalty in injury time when substitute Kyle Lafferty challenged Clancy, but Smith was quick to point out they felt aggrieved with plenty of the decisions by the referee, Alan Muir, especially the spot kick he did award Kilmarnock when Richard Foster challenged Clancy.
Jamie Hamill’s converted penalty cancelled out El Hadji Diouf’s first league goal for Rangers, before Clancy’s late disaster, but the home side were relieved to claim the win.
Smith said: “I thought this was going to be a difficult 90 minutes and we weren’t as sharp as we have been at home. Kilmarnock have been difficult opponents for everyone this season and they are not an easy team to break down. I’m delighted to win the game.
“It was good for El Hadji Diouf to score his first goal at Ibrox and Vladimir Weiss, who has still got a badly bruised foot, gave us a wee edge when he came on. I said before the St Mirren game that we would have two very important league games, and when we come out of the international break, I would hope to have one or two players back and increase our options.
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“There were many decisions that were hard to understand. For their penalty, the Kilmarnock player’s boot is at Foster’s head. And if their second appeal was given when we had a claim of our own when Nikica Jelavic was held back in their box and we didn’t get a penalty, then I have been wasting my time in football for all those years.
“And for their keeper to go through 90 minutes wasting as much time as he did and not even get spoken to... So I don’t think anyone could say any team got away with anything.”
Mixu Paatelainen, the Kilmarnock manager, was pleased at his side’s application. “I’m very disappointed because I thought our performance was good,” he said. “We got one penalty and I thought we had a very good claim for two. Rangers were fortunate to win, but good teams are fortunate.”