Rangers cut Hearts’ lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership to just two points as they won a frantic game 4-2 at Ibrox on Sunday evening.
Already five points behind the Tynecastle outfit ahead of the game, and in third place following Celtic’s last-gasp 3-2 victory against Kilmarnock earlier in the day, the hosts went behind early in Glasgow after Marc Leonard seized on a slack pass from Emmanuel Fernandez to fire the visitors into a 16th-minute lead.
However, a Michael Steinwender own goal quickly restored parity just two minutes later, though Claudio Braga’s sublime header put Derek McInnes’ team back into the lead on the half-hour mark. The outstanding Youssef Chermiti smashed the home side level again five minutes before the break, and the Portuguese striker repeated the trick on 57 minutes when he connected to Andreas Skov Olsen’s pinpoint cross to bullet home Rangers’ third goal and completed his hat-trick when he finished off a breakaway in injury-time.
Here’s how The Scotsman rated the performance of each player as Rangers beat Hearts 4-2 at Ibrox.
2. Alexander Schwolow (Hearts) - 6
Unlucky to concede the first, making two outstanding saves before the ball was eventually forced in by his own man. Not a day for goalkeepers, though. | SNS Group Photo: SNS Group
3. Dujon Sterling (Rangers) - 6
Overlapped well to give Skov Olsen an option down the right-hand side, and did well enough against Kyziridis. He loses a mark for passing the ball to an injured Chermiti and almost costing his side a goal in the first-half, though. Took off with half an hour to go. | SNS Group Photo: SNS Group
4. Oisin McEntee (Hearts) - N/A
Taken off after just 10 minutes with injury and replaced by Steinwender. | SNS Group Photo: SNS Group