The Old Firm rivals will have to do battle again at Celtic Park in the replay to determine who will travel to Inverness for the quarter-final.

As well as their Clydesdale Bank Premier League games, Rangers are also set to face the Hoops in next month's Co-operative Insurance Cup final - meaning an unprecedented seven meetings between the Glasgow giants this season.

Walter Smith's men already have a packed schedule, which includes Europa League ties against Sporting Lisbon in the coming weeks, and Bougherra says the prospect of yet more games is not good news.

He said: "It's not a good thing because we have many games coming up, including the Europa League.

"We have a big month in February and maybe March as well. We wanted to win today."

Rangers were twice pegged back by Celtic after Jamie Ness' opener was cancelled out by Kris Commons, before Steven Whittaker netted from the penalty spot and Scott Brown grabbed another leveller to earn a draw.

Both teams were reduced to 10 men, when goalkeeper Fraser Forster saw red for his challenge on Steven Naismith for the penalty and Naismith himself was then dismissed after picking up a second yellow card for diving in the box.

"The performance wasn't the best," admitted Bougherra.

"We started the game well and we finished the first half well. We were also good for the first 10 minutes of the second half but after that we were too deep.

"We couldn't keep the ball and it was a difficult second half. We have the draw and we are very disappointed because, after the red card, we went to 2-1 and Celtic were able to come back with their chances."

Forster was sent off just before half-time and Bougherra believes Rangers should have killed off the tie while they had the advantage in terms of numbers, before Naismith's red card.

He added: "Of course. It was more about the second half.

"Nikica Jelavic made the pass to Steven Davis and he needed just one centimetre to score. If he had scored that goal, the game would have changed completely.

"But, afterwards, Celtic kept going and they scored the second goal. Mentally, they killed us a little bit.

"We tried not to concede another goal because we were a little bit tired by the end of the 90 minutes."

Rangers assistant manager Ally McCoist backed referee Callum Murray's decision to send off Naismith.

When asked for his own view on the incident, Bougherra said: "Now it's finished.

"He had a foul before he fell but for the referee to take this game is very difficult. Sometimes there are good decisions and sometimes there are bad decisions but we don't think about this now."