Rangers take SPL lead

By: Ian Rose | January 5th, 2008

It was pretty much inevitable. Celtic’s shoddy run of play in December, including losing and drawing a number of matches they should have won, opened the door for Rangers to take over the lead in the SPL and they have done so. With their 2-0 home win over Dundee United today, Rangers take a 1-point lead in the overall points, still with a game in hand over Celtic. Steven Naismith opened the scoring at Ibrox in only the ninth minute, with a header off of Chris Burke’s fine cross. Rangers and Scotland captain Barry Ferguson nailed the coffin shut on United with another header just before the break, putting away a United side that looked absolutely toothless. Ferguson’s goal looks on replay to be offside, but referee Mike McCurry (Who Aberdeen fans regard as pretty much the Anti-Christ) gave his decision Rangers’ way, to the shock of absolutely no one. Scotland striker Kris Boyd, who I have been hoping to see more of, gave no signs of getting out of his slump, missing a penalty and only once seriously challenging the United keeper McLean.

In other SPL matches, my Caley Thistle took a nice clean win out of Gretna, the expected result these days. Another Marius Niculae brace sandwiched a penalty from John Rankin to make it 3-0. As bad as Gretna is, the transfer rats are about to jump ship, and this team may very well get a lot worse. Even with Hearts falling fast, I really can’t see Gretna staying up at this point.

Falkirk hosted Aberdeen and played to a scoreless draw, a result that will be extremely disappointing for Dons considering Falkirk was down a man for 35 minutes. The match that everyone expected to end this way wasn’t Falkirk-Dons but Hearts-Kilmarnock, but the two struggling sides each managed a goal, from Velicka and Digiacomo respectively. Hibs meanwhile kept the poor run for Edinburgh sides going with a 2-1 away loss at St. Mirren which raises the Buddies out of eleventh place and grants the honor of second-worst record to a very deserving Hearts, who managed their fourth red card in two games.

Hearts’ form is horrendous, their discipline completely out of hand. Luckily for the red side of Edinburgh, it doesn’t matter too much as far as relegation is concerned. Steven Frail has famously told his men that they are “not too good to go down”. But the fact is they don’t have to be. Gretna is too poor NOT to go down. With as many as five starting players looking to head elsewhere in January, things look grim for the Black and Whites, and Hearts can rest easy. They may miss out on the top six for the first time in 14 years, but relegation isn’t going to happen.

PS - Welcome to the new Hearts Offside blog. Graham has chosen a rough time to start blogging the old Jambos, but it’s sometimes the struggling teams that make the most interesting reading, so go check him out.