The Jambos\u2019 ended Gers\u2019 11-game unbeaten run in the league through goals from Stuart Findlay and Lawrence Shankland within four minutes of each other late in the first half, with Youssef Chermiti notching a stoppage-time consolation.<\/p>\n
Hearts have now won all four of their matches this season against Rangers and Celtic \u2013 Scottish football\u2019s traditional big two \u2013 and sit six points clear at the top of the league, having lost just one of their 18 matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players turned up again,\u201d said manager McInnes, who scoffed at the notion his side are only leading the way due to the struggles of the Old Firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s always the first question people would aim at you if you don\u2019t win a game like this. Can you win the big games when it really matters, when the question is asked of you?<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game is a big game, same three points, but in every big game in the eyes of others, we\u2019ve dealt with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re nearly halfway through the season. I\u2019ve got such a strong belief that we have got such a good team here. We\u2019ve got a good thing going.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expected us to win today. I did. We\u2019re exactly where we want to be. But I expected it to be tough and it was tough. Rangers have got a lot of talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep hearing about how poor other teams are. But our points tally is exactly where it should be for a team who should be top of the league. People seem to think that Hearts are only top of the league because of the failings of others.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we\u2019re just concentrating on ourselves. I genuinely feel we\u2019re going to have to improve if we\u2019re going to make it the season we want it to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the games go on, each game will hopefully become bigger. I want us to be relevant. I don\u2019t want us just to see out this season and think of what it could have been. I\u00a0want us to keep playing important games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gers boss Danny Rohl was disappointed his side, who are 12 points adrift of the Jambos with a game in hand, were unable to build on a promising start that included a Bojan Miovski effort disallowed for offside.<\/p>\n
The German refused to blame goalkeeper Jack Butland, who was at fault for Shankland\u2019s goal, pointing out \u201cJack gives us a lot of points\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a team from our side until 1-0 that was together,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were really good in the game, unlucky with this tight offside decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then we had four minutes and it cost us something. This is really tough to accept. We missed a big opportunity today. This is hard to take.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jambos\u2019 ended Gers\u2019 11-game unbeaten run in the league through goals from Stuart Findlay and Lawrence Shankland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-646680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115758760131066867","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}