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On Saturday, five matches of the 26th round of the Scottish football championship took place. Three of them ended with a result of 2-0, while the other two finished without goals. Edinburgh's "Hearts" managed to hold off Glasgow's "Rangers" and secured 1 point, but dropped from third to fourth place, as their closest pursuers, "Aberdeen," won.
"Hearts" started the match at the "Ibrox" stadium without two of their main players. Goalkeeper Craig Gordon is still not fully recovered from a calf injury, and midfielder Paulo Hartley, who was of interest to "Rangers," was decided not to be allowed on the field by Valdas Ivanauskas. The starting lineup featured three Lithuanians - Marius Žaliūkas, Saulius Mikoliūnas, and Andrius Velička.
"Rangers," as expected, started the match vigorously and in the early minutes already had four corner kicks near the visitors' goal, forcing Steve Banks to display his skills multiple times.
Later in the game, the playing field leveled out briefly, but Glasgow players attacked more frequently. In the 21st minute, Libor Sionko missed a great opportunity. After a corner kick chaos unfolded, the Czech had a free shot from just a few meters away, but the ball, hitting the post, flew out. Kris Boyd then failed to direct the ball into the empty net.
In the first half, "Hearts" mostly had to be content with quick counterattacks and pay more attention to the safety of their own goal, as the attacks from "Rangers" kept coming one after another.
In the second half, during which all three Lithuanians were replaced, the scene did not change. "Rangers" continued to press their opponents and attack, while "Hearts" countered. The hosts managed to score in the 77th minute, but Barry Ferguson's goal was disallowed by the referee due to offside.
At the end of the match, the visitors defended almost the entire team and achieved their goal - the game ended in a draw, and the teams shared a point.
The Edinburgh footballers' draw was taken advantage of by closest pursuers, "Aberdeen," who won 2-0 away with two goals from Andrew Considine in the first half against "St. Mirren" and rose to third place. "St. Mirren," who won only one of their last 15 matches, could have narrowed the margin in the second half, but missed an 11 m penalty. Meanwhile, "Aberdeen" ended a series of four winless matches.
Another capital team, "Hibernian," also won 2-0 at home against "Motherwell" and moved even closer to "Hearts." The first goal for the winners was scored by Scott Brown, who is believed to soon leave the team due to internal disagreements.
In other matches, there were no goals between "Dunfermline" and "Dundee United," while in the duel of the two neighbors on the tournament table, "Kilmarnock" surpassed "Falkirk."
Statistics:
"Rangers" 0 - 0 "Hearts"
"St. Mirren" 0 - 2 "Aberdeen" 8‘ [0 - 1] Andrew Considine 36‘ [0 - 2] Andrew Considine
"Hibernian" 2 - 0 "Motherwell" 66‘ [1 - 0] Scott Brown 90+2‘ [2 - 0] Abdessalam Benjelloun
"Dunfermline" 0 - 0 "Dundee United"
"Falkirk" 0 - 2 "Kilmarnock" 22‘ [0 - 1] Colin Nish 28‘ [0 - 2] Steven Naismith
Tournament table:
