Rangers ride luck to the summit

Graham Clark at Ibrox
Monday November 29, 2004
The Guardian

Events 90 miles away on Tayside conspired to encourage Rangers to go top of the PremierLeague for the first time in 14 months.

The Ibrox team stepped up a gear after a lacklustre first half when they were fortunate to be on level terms with Hearts as news filtered through of the two points dropped by their title rivals Celtic at Dundee.

Even so, Rangers had to dig deep against visitors who produced an outstanding performance on the back of their Uefa Cup success in Basle in midweek and who were unlucky to leave Glasgow empty-handed.

Hearts were also furious they took nothing from a feisty fixture because they believed Jean-Alain Boumsong should have been sent off rather than simply booked for denying Mark de Vries a goalscoring opportunity, even though Paul Hartley went on to open the scoring from the penalty spot in the 16th minute.

They were further incensed by Rangers' eventual winner, claiming the ball had gone out of play during the build-up to Nacho Novo's second goal of the game in the 81st minute.

In between times, a Jamie McAllister own-goal on the stroke of half-time levelled the score at the interval. Novo's 13th goal of a fine first season at Ibrox put the home team ahead only for De Vries once again to put it all back in the melting pot with a clever header after 66 minutes.

At that point either team could have gone on to win and it was Rangers who did when Novo rose to head home a cross from the substitute Stephen Hughes.

Hearts felt robbed. Their manager John Robertson recalled having Alan Maybury sent off last weekend for an offence not dissimilar to Boumsong's and declared: "One or two decisions went against us and we feel hard done by with that.

"All managers want regarding an incident like the penalty is clarification because we lost a player last week when there was no goalscoring opportunity yet that didn't happen this time when our striker was only six yards out and about to shoot.

"You have to take these things although you just wonder when we'll get a break."

Robertson will now sit down this week with a host of players who are nearing the end of their contracts as Vladimir Romanov prepares to take over at Hearts and install the former Russia coach Anatoly Byshovets as director of football.

Rangers, meanwhile, face a difficult Uefa Cup trip to AZ Alkmaar on Thursday and their manager Alex McLeish admitted he would have to treat his weary players with care.

"They have had a very demanding month or two and showed some signs of that but I have to be proud of them getting to the top of the table even though nothing is decided in November," he said.

"This was another hard game but we found out the Celtic score at half-time so there was an incentive there."

Taken from the Guardian/Observer