Abdallah Sima scored his 12th goal of the season as Rangers defeated Hearts 1-0 at Tynecastle Park this evening.
The Senegalese forward latched onto James Tavernier’s defence-splitting through pass before sliding the ball under the legs of Zander Clark in the Hearts goal to give his side the lead after 34 minutes.
Alex Cochrane had a glorious opportunity to give the Jambos the lead before Sima’s opener but his effort was heroically blocked off the line by Gers captain James Tavernier.
Danilo should have made doubled the visitors’ advantage with two guilt-edged misses either side of half-time but he was denied on both occasions by Zander Clark.
The Jambos’ run of four consecutive league victories is now over as they make it 12 matches without a win against the Light Blues.
Both Rangers and Hearts keep their respective 2nd and 3rd positions in the cinch Premiership table.
Philippe Clement was particularly impressed by his side’s attitude and mentality during tonight’s win. He said:
“Everyone is fighting. Everyone is doing their job. Everybody works hard for the team.
“Before I came here, I didn’t see touch much a team on the pitch in the images I saw. I see now a team, a dressing room, where everybody wants to fight.
“Where also people come in not in their best position, but do the job and do everything for the team like Dujon (Sterling) today as left full-back.
“Those are very crucial things. Having that mentality gives you 10/15 extra points in a season and that’s what we need.”
Hearts boss Steven Naismith praised the quality of the opposition tonight who made it 11 matches unbeaten under new manager Philippe Clement. He said:
“Sometimes you need to accept you can’t win it when you’re in that mid-zone and they (Rangers) manage to play a couple of passes and before you know it you are defending your own box.
“It’s tough, they’ve got intelligent players, they’ve got good players who are sharp.
“When you play the Old Firm you need to run the risk of being exposed a few times.
“We done that, we got through it and then at the end we have got a few chances that we could’ve took something from the game.”
