Managerless Hearts fly high as Rangers fall

STUART BATHGATE

WATCHED by majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov, managerless Hearts maintained their three-point lead at the top of the Bank of Scotland Premierleague with a 1-0 victory over Kilmarnock at Tynecastle last night. A 35th-minute goal by Edgaras Jankauskas extended the Edinburgh side's unbeaten run to 12 games and gave caretaker manager John McGlynn two wins out of two.

Hearts' closest rivals, Celtic, kept up the pressure with a 5-0 thrashing of Motherwell at Parkhead in a match which saw Stilian Petrov score a hat-trick. But there was a shock at Almondvale where Rangers let slip a 2-0 lead against Livingston and had to settle for a 2-2 draw. The result leaves the Ibrox side in fourth place, trailing the leaders by 11 points. Alex McLeish cut an exasperated figure but insisted he had no intention of quitting.

"I never think that way," the Rangers manager said. "We know the pressure is there - it goes with the territory of being at Rangers - and we expect to win these games. You can't hide from that fact.

"I have just got to keep my head up, keep working with these guys and get them playing to the form they are capable of.

"With a result like this, we increase the pressure on ourselves. It is already there and intensifies with a result like this. But we take collective responsibility and we know we have to put it right."

Goals from Barry Ferguson and Chris Burke appeared to have wrapped up the points for Rangers, but a double from Livingston striker Robert Snodgrass claimed a 2-2 draw for the West Lothian side.

"We need to win almost every game now," McLeish added. "The players went on a fantastic run last year and we clawed back the deficit. It wasn't 11 points but there are still enough points to do it."

At Tynecastle, McGlynn said he had been pleased with the professionalism of the players, but accepted he did not know how long his third spell as interim manager would last. "It was a difficult game for us in the circumstances," McGlynn said, referring to George Burley's departure from the league leaders last week. "You can talk to the players and cajole them, but you don't know what will happen when they cross that white line, so it was a massive challenge."

While Hearts maintain their form, the club have upped the pace in their search for a new manager. Phil Anderton, the club's chief executive, will soon make "solid recommendations" to the board of directors after he completes two days of meeting candidates to succeed Burley.

Romanov, who returned to Britain from Lithuania on Wednesday, is expected to meet Sir Bobby Robson before the end of the week, with the former England manager keen to take over at Tynecastle.

"I am close to finalising the list of potential candidates and every one of them is a manager with top-class European pedigree," Anderton said. "Sir Bobby Robson is somebody I have a lot of respect for, I met with him at length the last time this happened and we would have had him at this club. It was a great honour to be associated with him and he declined at that point for his own personal reasons. Clearly, he is the type of person I will be having discussions with and time will tell if that comes to fruition."

Elsewhere, two goals from Garry O'Connor gave Hibernian a 2-1 away win over Dunfermline Athletic who had former Hibs defender Yannick Zambernardi sent off. At Caledonian Stadium, Inverness Caley Thistle slumped to a 3-0 home defeat at the hands of Falkirk.

Taken from the Scotsman