Scottish Premiership Title Race: As You Were after the Split
The last game before the split was always going to be huge, especially after Hearts dropped points last week. This meant that there was only three points between the top three going into this weekend.
Hearts and Celtic both kicked off at 3pm on Saturday whilst Rangers had to wait until midday on Sunday when they travelled to the Falkirk Stadium.
Scottish Premiership Title Race Remains the Same
The league leaders hosted Motherwell at Tynecastle and Celtic hosted St. Mirren at Celtic Park with both sets of fans undoubtedly having one eye on their game and one eye on the other. The tension at Celtic Park was eased relatively early on when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored in the fifteenth minute to open the scoring, less than ten minutes after he had a goal chopped off for offside.
1-0 was the scoreline at half-time whilst Hearts went in level at 0-0. It wasn’t long into the second half when things changed though, in the 50th minute Motherwell put a brilliant move together which ended with the ball being squared across the box and Manny Longelo tapping in at the back post. That lead would only last ten minutes though as Hearts top scorer Claudio Braga was on the scoresheet again with an, almost, overhead kick which slightly deflected off of Paul McGinn and went beyond Calum Ward.
Not much was going on at Celtic Park and it remained 1-0 until full-time.
There was plenty of drama left at Tynecastle though, after Tawanda Maswanhise missed a guilt-edge chance at 1-1, Hearts were awarded a penalty after a VAR check in the 87th minute. It was given due to Welsh kicking Kabore on the back of the head when the Hearts striker was on the ground, the rules state this probably should have been a free-kick to Motherwell due to ‘dangerous play’ but the officials on the day decided it should be a penalty to the home side.
Lawrence Shankland stepped up and dispatched with ease, sending the goalkeeper the wrong way, Hearts then sealed a 3-1 victory when Kabore scored from a breakaway in injury time.
These results moved Hearts four clear of Rangers and allowed Celtic to leapfrog them into second, one point ahead.
Rangers Keep Up with High Scoring Win
Then potentially the game of the season happened on Sunday. Six minutes in, Falkirk took the lead after excellent work from Calvin Miller down the left and his cross found Ben Broggio in the middle who took a touch and calmly smashed the ball past Butland. Twenty minutes later it was 2-0 to the home side thanks to a brilliant finish from the edge of the box by Yeats, he ran onto the ball and struck it beautifully into the bottom corner giving Butland little chance.
Just before half-time Rangers, probably undeservedly at the time, got back into it, Thelo Aasgaard’s low shot hit the post but it fell to Raskin who crossed it back into the box. There were appeals that the ball went out of play here but it wasn’t given and Gassama’s header back across hit the post before Chukwuani smashed it into the roof of the net.
Falkirk went in 2-1 up at half time.
Rangers were poor in the first half but came out firing, Moore was replaced by Miovski and that extra body up top made a massive difference. Good play from Gassama on the left finished with a delicate Chermiti finish to make it 2-2 in the 47th minute. Five minutes later, the turnaround was complete, Raskin intercepted the ball in the middle of the pitch then played a one-two with Aasgaard before drilling a low driven shot into the opposite corner from just inside the box, making it 3-2 on the 52nd minute!
The scoring absolutely did not end there though and just over five minutes later it was 4-2 Rangers. A brilliant Raskin cross from the left was met expertly by Miovski who made a great run towards the front post and turned it in off of his knee/thigh. Just before the 70th minute, lazy defending by James Tavernier led to Filip Lissah driving beyond him but the Rangers captain attempted to pull him back and ended up clipping him and giving away a penalty.
Calvin Miller stepped up and dispatched it calmly to make it 4-3 with twenty minutes left. The hope only lasted four minutes though as Gassama’s deflected shot fell to Chermiti’s feet and he smashed it through Bain to get his second of the game and make it 5-3.
Rangers sealed the victory in style, substitute Oliver Antman played a nice one-two with Chermiti and fired a cross across the box which perfectly found Miovski who tapped it in for his second and Rangers sixth!
This incredible game finished 6-3 and meant the league table was exactly the same as before the weekend started;
- Hearts - 70pts
- Rangers - 69pts
- Celtic - 67pts
That 6-3 demolition leaves Rangers with a +5 goal difference over Hearts and +11 over Celtic, that could be significant going into the final few games.
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