Steven Gerrard admitted Rangers shot themselves in the foot against Hibs by failing to grab a second goal.
Alfredo Morelos fired his 20th of the season midway through the first half but Adam Bogdan kept the Leith side in the clash and the visitors snatched a point four minutes from time when Darren McGregor headed home against his former side.
"We've obviously led for the majority of the game and I think we shot ourselves in the foot by not killing the game off," confessed Gerrard.
"I think we had chances to go and get the second but Hibs produced that one moment of quality to really catch us out and take two points away from us.
"It's not a frustration with that as sometimes you have to hold your hand up to quality and I thought the delivery on the goal was good.
"We'll certainly analyse where we've gone wrong on that but I don't think that's the reason why we've not won the game today.
"It's more about us not having the killer instinct to go and finish this game off."
The dropped points could not come at a worse time for Gers ahead of Saturday's Old Firm clash.
Celtic – who have a game in hand on Gerrard's team – can open up a six-point lead with victory but Gerrard bristled at suggestions the second derby meeting of the season was a must-win affair.
He said: "I've never, ever played in a derby that hasn't been must-win. If we were sitting above Celtic right now, I'd be saying it's must-win.
"So every game against Celtic is must-win. No-one should really ever ask a Rangers manager if an Old Firm game is must-win because you are only going to get one answer."
McGregor was Hibs' hero but boss Neil Lennon was delighted with the contribution of Florian Kamberi.
The Easter Road boss questioned the striker's commitment levels after he missed a penalty against Livingston last week.
But after watching his display in Govan, Lennon said: "I had a long chat with Flo and I have a lot of faith in him.
"He has not been producing that sort of performance and you see it yourself today.
"He had a different body language and physicality about himself, his touch and hold-up play were better.
"Now do that week-in, week-out for us to evolve as a team because that's what we are – evolving after losing a lot of good players in the summer.
"It takes a lot of time for them to gel but I'm looking forward to January because we need to get some bodies in because our injury list is horrendous."
