GORDON HAILED AS SCOTLAND'S NO 1

By Chris Bertram, PA Sport

Hearts coach >b>Valdas Ivanauskas hailed the contribution of Scotland keeper Craig Gordon following the Bank of Scotland SPL victory over Motherwell.

Jamie Mole claimed all three points for Hearts - beaten in their previous two home games against St Mirren and Sparta Prague - with a 69th-minute strike on the counter-attack at Fir Park.

And Gordon preserved the victory with a stunning close-range save from Jim Paterson with just seconds remaining having already denied Keith Lasley earlier in the half.

Ivanauskas said: "What Craig Gordon did is not new to me. He is the best keeper in Scotland, maybe the best keeper in Europe. He is our wall.

"I haven't seen a keeper so calm and so solid of his age before and he is an important part of our team."

The Jambos boss was delighted to be back on the winning trail and pointed to the team's character as a reason for the triumph.

He said: "We're very happy with the win after a bad game against Sparta Prague. How we won is not important - it is the win that counts.

"It's a very important three points but how we took the points is more important. It was done through character and fight and togetherness.

"We knew it would be difficult here as they have a strong, young team and the pitch is difficult, but we coped."

Motherwell boss Maurice Malpas revealed a serious injury to defender Brian McLean had made the Lanarkshire club's day even worse.

McLean was taken off on a stretcher after just five minutes of his return to the side and becomes the latest defensive injury former Scotland left-back Malpas has to contend with as he seeks to move his club away from the foot of the table.

The injury to the former Rangers reserve-team player rubbed salt into Motherwell wounds following a game their manager feels they deserved something from.

He said: "It looks as though we could have another long-term injury with Brian. He has done his medial ligament in his knee, possibly the lot.

"It will be another few days before we can determine that and it's another defender we have injured.

"If anybody thinks we didn't deserve something today they were at a different game to me. We had most of the chances but never scored and Craig Gordon had a couple of good saves.

"It's a result business and they score their goal and go away with the points. We just have to go and concentrate on the next game.

"If anyone has been saying we're a team in crisis hopefully that will put an end to that. The saddest thing for me is producing a performance like that having played so badly last week.

"The team that has beaten us have not been better than us football wise, they just took their chance. We've not been destroyed by any team and we'll just keep plodding away."

Taken from sportinglife.com