Saturday 10th December 2016 Kickoff: 1500hrs Rangers v Hearts Football – Scotland – Scottish Premiership
The big match in Scotland this weekend takes place at Ibrox on Saturday with second place Rangers hosting fourth placed Hearts. This is the second meeting in 10 days between the sides after the team from the capital bossed the game at Tynecastle so Rangers will be looking for some quick revenge and put some more space between the two.
It has not been the season that Mark Warburton would have hoped for to date after his Rangers team won promotion from the Championship last term. Expectation was high throughout the club, especially amongst the supporters, that they would be able to challenge Celtic for the title following their win on penalties over that rival in the Scottish Cup semi final back in April. However, as we approach Christmas Brendan Rodgers’ men have opened up an 11 point gap over the chasing pack and still have two games in hand over Rangers. Anything can happen of course but it already seems unthinkable that the leaders will drop enough points for the teams in behind to benefit. Instead, Rangers have to be realistic and hope to finish best of the rest and to do that, they have to follow up last weekend’s important win over Aberdeen (who currently split themselves and Hearts in the table) by taking another three points tomorrow.
The 2-0 win over Rangers at the end of last month turned out to be the last in charge for Robbie Neilson who departed to take over at MK Dons. His replacement has led to much discussion in the Scottish media with some doubting the capabilities of Ian Cathro who has never managed a team before. Cathro arrives from Newcastle where he was an assistant to Rafa Benitez and at just 30 is lacking the life and managerial experience that many believe is necessary for such a job. Whatever the concerns about the appointment are, there’s no doubt that a visit to Ibrox for his first game in charge represents a real challenge for the new man. Hearts have not won an away game in the league since the end of September but have drawn their last three on their travels and as they are unbeaten in their last six overall, they will travel to Glasgow with some confidence of getting another result and keeping the pressure on Rangers and Aberdeen.
Rangers v Hearts Betting Tips
Hearts were deserved winners 10 days ago as they proved far too strong for a very disappointing Rangers team. It’s hard to imagine that Warburton’s team will be so inept again but they have not been convincing for a few weeks now and even in last week’s win over Aberdeen there was a real fragility about their play. Rangers’ home record is decent, however, and they remain unbeaten after eight league games, winning five of those. Considering the managerial change I’m not overly confident about how Hearts will approach this game but as the personnel is the same then we should expect the visitors to be direct and get the ball forward quickly. That worked to great effect in the last meeting but as proved by their home record, Rangers seem to be a different entity at Ibrox.
Four of their eight home games have finished with both teams to score whilst Hearts have had the same outcome in five of their last seven away games in the league, making the 7/10 on offer quite appealing.
Both teams to score 7/10 @ Bet365
