More problems for Rix when Saturday comes

Motherwell (1) 1 Hearts (0) 1

Graham Rix does not like Saturdays. He confessed his variation on the Boomtown Rats theme after watching Heart of Midlothian edge a tight draw against Motherwell after coming from behind for the second time in his two games in charge.

"It's the hardest time of the week for me and it was tougher today because we had a shortage of forwards and I was forced to play with one man up, which I didn't want to have to do," said Rix. In fact, he did have Michael Pospisil available but chose not to use the attacker, who was substituted against Aberdeen at Pittodrie last week, leaving him out on this occasion for what Rix said were "football reasons".

Although they had to chase the game for most of the 90 minutes, Hearts can return to the top of the Scottish Premier League - albeit temporarily, perhaps - if they beat Livingston at Tynecastle on Saturday, despite the extension of a number of unwanted trends at Fir Park. When Brian McLean, on loan at Motherwell from Rangers, claimed his first senior goal after a well-worked first-half free-kick, it was the fourth time in five away games that Hearts had fallen behind.

Paul Hartley's injury-time penalty, awarded for McLean's ungainly challenge on Andy Webster, gave Hearts parity, but they have not won at Fir Park since 2002 and have failed to win on the road since they beat Livingston at Almondvale on Sept 11.

Yet in this intriguing SPL title race they found themselves within a point of the leaders as Celtic suffered a wholly unexpected home defeat against Dunfermline Athletic, for whom Greg Ross scored the only goal of the game after 17 minutes.

John Hartson had complained beforehand that he and his Celtic colleagues had not been given appropriate credit for successive wins over Rangers in the CIS Cup and league, with five goals scored and none conceded, but they are not likely to repeat their plea for sympathy after this shock result.

Celtic now face a tricky fixture on Sunday at Pittodrie where they meet Aberdeen, who won 2-1 at Falkirk with goals from Chris Clark and Russell Anderson. Falkirk's consolation was scored by Daniel McBreen.

Dundee United closed to within a point of Falkirk when they drew with Caledonian Thistle in Inverness, where Lee Miller opened for the visitors and Ross Tokely equalised. Kilmarnock's 3-0 victory at Livingston, which sent the home side back to the foot of the table, was notable for two goals from Kris Boyd - the other came from Steven Naismith - which took the Ayrshire forward's SPL total to 61, the fourth highest on record.

Boyd, who has attracted attention from several English clubs, is now one goal ahead of Billy Dodds, but still behind Henrik Larsson, Chris Sutton and John Hartson in the league's top scorers' list.

Taken from telegraph.co.uk