We said in our preview to this weekends SPL games that the league was effectively over for this year. Celtic and Rangers, runaway leaders at the top of the table would continue to maintain that lead over the rest of the league. But football is a funny old game as we all know ..
We’ve stopped doing predictions here – simply because we’re not very good at them – but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Celtic would beat Caley (they did), and we honestly thought that Rangers would beat Hearts. Past results tell us that Rangers generally beat Hearts at Tynecastle so who’d have bet against them doing it again today?
Heart’s problems are well known – they lack an effective strike force. Manager Csaba Laszlo has been speaking out in the press as recently as last month about this issue, suggesting that he’ll buy in new talent should his current striking options not deliver in front of goal. Jamie Mole, Audrius Ksanavicius and Saulius Mikoliunas have all scored, but his other strikers, Juho Makela, Christian Nade and Mike Tullberg have not exactly been bulging the net this season. Instead, most of the teams goals are scored by midfielders (Michael Stewart and Bruno Aguiar) or defenders (Marius Zaliukas). Nevertheless, Lazlo has done well this season with the mix of squad he has – a large number of foreigners, a tyranical owner and, possibly related, a hint of financial trouble. For the second time this season, the Hearts players have not been paid their wages (including win bonuses) this month.
Despite this, Hearts managed to close the gap on second place with a win over Rangers, a win in which all the goals where scored by Hearts players. All three goals where scored in the first half, with Zaliukas, Kingston and then an own goal by Karipidis completed the score line with only 26 minuted on the clock. Hearts played the last 15 minutes of the game against 10 men after Lee Wallace was sent off, but they could not make the advantage count.
The defeat, coupled with Celtic’s 1-0 win – Shaun Maloney with the goal – over Inverness now opens up the gap between first and second to seven points, with 16 games played.
Elsewhere in the Scottish Premier, Aberdeen win their third home game of the season with a well earned win over a 10-man Motherwell side, for whom things just get worse from week to week. Gary McDonald opened the scoring for Aberdeen, and Lee Miller added a second from the penalty spot after Paul Quinn was sent off for bringing down Darren Mackie in the box. A good win to celebrate Jimmy Calderwood’s 200th game in charge of the Pittodrie side. The three extra points push the Dons into fifth place, while Motherwell slide further down to 10th.
Falkirk where 10 minutes from another three points until Colin Nish levelled the scores for Hibernian (1-1). A mere 2000 spectators turned up at Hamilton as they beat Kilmarnock 1-0 courtesy of a Richard Offiong goal just after the break. St. Mirren lost out 2-0 to Dundee United at Love Street. John Daley got both goals for the Terrors. The defeat pushes Gus McPhersons men back down to bottom spot in the SPL, as Hamilton climb above them thanks to that win over Kilmarnock.
The SPL Table
1 Celtic 16 25 43 2 Rangers 16 22 36 3 Hearts 16 0 29 4 Dundee Utd 16 5 26 5 Aberdeen 16 -1 21 6 Hibernian 16 -3 20 7 Kilmarnock 16 -8 19 8 Falkirk 16 -3 17 9 Inverness 16 -6 17 10 Motherwell 16 -8 17 11 Hamilton 16 -12 14 12 St Mirren 16 -11 12
Scottish First Division
There was just the one game today in the Scottish First division. Dundee played out a 1-1 draw with league leaders St. Johnstone at Dens Park. Dundee fought back in the second half to earn their point although manager Jocky Scott is still concerned at the lack of consistency in the squad. As he told the Dundee FC website
“When you watched that second half and the amount of times we have the ball in wide areas and don’t produce telling crosses – the goal we score is a really good goal – It’s the only cross in the game that is a difficult cross for them to defend and we score with it. The rest of the crosses were hopeful rather than good crosses. The supply isn’t good enough on a consistent basis, but also, at times the decision making (from the strikers) isn’t good. You know – whether to shoot or whether to lay it off for somebody else, big Curier had one where he shot and Alan Main has a good save but he could have laid it for Deasley who was free, that’s the kind of thing I mean, but goalscoring will come, that will come.”
St. Johnstone where unlucky not to come away with all three points against their rivals from down the road, but judging by the match reports from both clubs websites, a draw was a fair result. Dundee are in seventh spot with 20 points, while St. Johnstone increase their lead at the top of the table to four points over Dunfermline – the Saints are on 28 points.
Scottish Cup, Third Round
There was just the one big upset in the Third round of the Scottish Cup. First division Livingston where knocked out of the competition by Third division East Stirling, piling on more pressure and misery on the club that had started out strongly this season but who are now under serious financial threat, with former owner Pearce Flynn adding his name to the growing list of creditors – he’s claiming £333,000 from the Almondvale outfit. The good news however is that the Livi players where paid ahead of their Cup tie. Fat lot of good it did them though.
In the games that went ahead, both Highland League clubs where eliminated. Cove Rangers went down 3-0 to Airdrie. Following on from chairman Jim Ballantyne’s comments last week about falling attendances, a crowd of 821 turned out to see The Diamonds progress to the next round. Clachnacuddin went down 5-0 to Third division leaders Stenhousemuir. Inverurie Loco’s game against Vale of Leithen and Forres Mechanics encounter with Dalbeattie Star where called off.
Other games called off due to frozen pitches included the games at Lochee United, Forfar, Elgin City and Edinburgh City. The remaining results in the Third Round finished as follows.
Albion 1-2 Queens Park Clyde 2-0 Montrose East Fife 2-0 Arbroath Peterhead 2-1 Morton Raith 0-0 Alloa Ross County 2-2 Dumbarton Stirling 2-3 Partick
That’s your roundup for this weekend. If you have any comments, match reports, images or other news, views and reviews, leave us a note at the usual addres.
Related posts:
- The Scottish Football Weekend Gala Roundup
- Off The Ball – Scottish football news roundup
- Scottish Football’s Four to Follow
- Scottish Football Weekend Preview
- The Week in Scottish Football
Tags: Scottish Cup, SFL, SPL
