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On Saturday, in the regular Scottish Championship 26th round match, Edinburgh's "Hearts" club suffered its second season defeat at home, losing to Aberdeen, who had gotten revenge for the thrashing they received last week in the cup match on the same field.
Shocked by talks of possible interference from club owner Vladimir Romanov in team selection, "Hearts" played a draw in the previous round, moving further away from league leaders "Celtic", but before today's match, Edinburgh team coach Graham Rix stated that he picks the team.
In the starting eleven for the second consecutive match, there was not a single Lithuanian for "Hearts", with only Deividas Cesnauskis remaining on the bench. However, the match started successfully for the hosts when a pass from Rudi Skacel led to a goal by Calum Elliot.
However, the away team started to play better later on, and despite "Hearts" being saved from a goal once by the crossbar and later several times by goalkeeper Craig Gordon, "Aberdeen" eventually managed to equalize - Scott Severin tried to clear the ball for his team, but it bounced off "Hearts" captain Steven Pressley and into the goal.
With three minutes left in the match, "Aberdeen" snatched the victory with a goal from Chris Clark, whose shot from 20 meters bounced off an opponent and, after changing direction slightly, found the net. "Hearts" failed to win, but can at least take comfort in the fact that in Sunday's match in the Glasgow derby between "Celtic" and "Rangers", points will be dropped by one of the opponents in the battle for the top spots.
The opportunity to get closer to "Hearts" was not taken by city neighbor "Hibernian", who played to a goalless draw away with "Falkirk". The match in Inverness also ended peacefully, with the local club finishing a 3-3 draw against "Kilmarnock" in a very eventful game where the lead changed thrice.
In 26th round results:
1 - 2 9` [1 - 0] Calum Elliot 68` [1 - 1] Steven Pressley (own goal) 87` [1 - 2] Chris Clark
2 - 0 27` [1 - 0] Richie Foran 57` [2 - 0] Richie Foran
0 - 1 12` [0 - 1] Mark Burchill
3 - 3 27` [0 - 1] Steven Naismith 34` [1 - 1] Dennis Wyness 68` [2 - 1] Craig Dargo 69` [2 - 2] Gary Wales 85` [2 - 3] Gary Wales 86` [3 - 3] David Proctor
0 - 0
League table:
