Lithuanian goals saved the "Hearts" team

2006-12-02 19:45 © EuroFootball.com

In the Scottish championship on Saturday, the matches of the seventeenth round took place. Two months without a win, the "Hearts" team was saved from failure against the league newcomer "St. Mirren" by Lithuanian goals, while the Edinburgh team took advantage of the draw and surpassed with victories their city neighbors "Hibernian" and "Kilmarnock". The leader "Celtic" narrowly defeated "Aberdeen", while "Motherwell" snatched a victory away.

After a long break, Valdas Ivanauskas returned to the helm of the "Hearts" team, and he made three changes to the starting eleven compared to the previous match - Julien Brellier, Nerijus Barasa, and, as it is believed, Steven Pressley, who is rumored to have conflicted with the club management again, replaced Ibrahim Tall and returning from injury Neil McCann and Edgaras Jankauskas.

From the start of the match, Saulius Mikoliūnas, who had performed well in the match against "Inverness", ran onto the field and in the 17th second of the game in Paisley against "St. Mirren" he put the visitors ahead - after a precise pass from E. Jankauskas, he defeated goalkeeper Tony Bullock.

Later, the hosts took initiative and missed good opportunities to score with Simon Lappin and Stewart Kean failing to hit the target, with the goalkeeper Craig Gordon saving Kean's shot. "Hearts" responded with another "Lithuanian" attack, but E. Jankauskas failed to score after receiving the ball from A. Velicka's pass, and on the other side of the field, Kevin McGowne missed wide after a corner kick.

However, "St. Mirren's" efforts paid off and in the 19th minute, "Hearts" failed to defend a penalty kick and S. Keanas rushed to the ball first and equalized the score, which he doubled a few minutes later by scoring a second goal when he sent the ball into the net after a pass from Garry Brady. However, shortly after, the hosts' team hero suffered an injury and was substituted, while unsatisfied with his defenders, V. Ivanauskas decided to field Marius Zaliukas instead of Christoph Berra.

After playing 34 minutes, taking advantage of S. Mikoliūnas' rebounded shot, the most productive "Hearts" forward A. Velicka scored, but it was ruled offside. The Edinburgh team continued to attack and after a corner kick, I. Tall's header was punched away from the goal line by T. Bullock, and with three minutes left until the end of the half, E. Jankauskas had a hundred percent chance, but the Lithuanian forward hesitated if there was an offside and weakly struck the ball.

At the beginning of the second half, after a precise combination, "St. Mirren" almost scored another goal, but to the relief of "Hearts," J. Sutton did not reach the ball. This gave an opportunity to the visitors, and in the 51st minute M. Zaliukas took advantage of it - after a penalty kick, the Lithuanian bypassed the goalkeeper and headed the ball into the net.

The Edinburgh club sought victory and midway through the half, E. Jankauskas almost contributed to the scorers, however, when A. Velicka's team-mate passed into the penalty area, he headed the ball into the crossbar. However, in the 75th minute, "Hearts" hopes were finally dashed when the second yellow card was shown to defender Paul Hartley, and the score remained unchanged.

This was the ninth winless match for "Hearts" - the Capital City team failed to secure a victory for almost two months since the match against "Dundee Utd" on October 1. Interestingly, during this period, all goals for the team were scored by Lithuanians, with five out of seven scored by the particularly successful A. Velicka.

Another two lost points pushed the Edinburgh team down to sixth place in the tournament table, as other teams that had fewer or as many points achieved victories - "Kilmarnock" thrashed the bottom-ranked "Dunfermline" 5-1 at home, while "Hibernian" recovered from a missed goal and beat "Dundee Utd" 2-1.

The match between "Inverness" and "Motherwell" was dramatic. After failing to score in three consecutive matches, "Inverness" did the same again, and "Motherwell" managed to score at the end of the match when Darren Dods brought down Scott McDonald in the penalty area and was sent off, with Richie Foran converting the penalty.

The title holders "Celtic" met "Aberdeen", who recently entered the fight for the second place. For most of the match, the visitors were saved by the excellent performance of goalkeeper Jamie Langfield, but he could not help his team in the 71st minute, when the only goal of the match was scored by Polish Maciej Zurawski from 8 meters. In additional time, "Aberdeen" could have equalized, but Russell Anderson's header was saved by Arturas Borucas.

"Celtic" secured their ninth victory out of as many possible at home, and now lead by 16 points ahead of "Aberdeen" and the other Glasgow club "Rangers", who played their round match away against "Falkirk" on Sunday.

Statistics of Saturday's matches:

1 - 0

72' [1 - 0] Maciej Zurawski

2 - 1

24' [0 - 1] Shelton Martis (own goal)

45' [1 - 1] Rob Jones

73' [2 - 1] Steven Fletcher

0 - 1

90' [0 - 1] Richie Foran (penalty)

90' Darren Dods ("Inverness") sent off

5 - 1

7' [1 - 0] Gordon Greer