Livingston

Celtic win again as Rangers bounce back – 5 things from the Scottish Premiership

08-Mar-2020 19:44:52 | Four-Four-Two

Celtic took another step towards wrapping up the Ladbrokes Premiership title with a 5-0 win over St Mirren before Rangers claimed a much-needed 1-0 victory at Ross County.The race for European and top-six places and the battle to avoid the drop heated up with Motherwell and Aberdeen a point apart ahead of their meeting on Friday.Here are five things we learned from the weekends action.Rangers have stopped the rotRyan Kent, right, celebrates his goal at Ross County (Steve Welsh/PA)Steven Gerrards side produced another unconvincing display but Ryan Kents deflected goal in the 77th minute earned them a first win in four domestic matches. Three points and a clean sheet were Gerrards key demands after a difficult week which saw Rangers follow their William Hill Scottish Cup exit against Hearts with a home defeat by Hamilton.Hearts need to be more patient After 1-1 I thought we could change the result but we wanted it too much.We did not really play with patience when we had the chance to play ahead."Daniel believes its been a good week but rues his team's lack of patience today. https://t.co/Y4ijZhsAv9 pic.twitter.com/BDKnAerviB Heart of Midlothian FC (@JamTarts) March 7, 2020So claimed Daniel Stendel after his side slipped three points adrift following a 1-1 home draw with Motherwell. The bottom side gave themselves an uphill task after gifting Christopher Long the opener but looked like they had the momentum after Conor Washingtons 49th-minute equaliser. However, Stendel felt they rushed play and hit the ball long too early and Motherwell had some good chances before Hearts snatched at three stoppage-time opportunities.Hamilton are finding consistency at the perfect timeThe last time we had successive league wins was 2 years ago this weekend, with a 2-1 home v Partick followed by a 2-0 home v Motherwell Hamilton Accies FC (@acciesfc) March 7, 2020Accies secured consecutive league wins for the first time in two years by following their Ibrox triumph with a late victory over Kilmarnock. Brian Rices side also extended an unbeaten run to four matches and moved out of the bottom two. They could be back in after St Mirren play Hearts on Wednesday but they have the chance to leapfrog Ross County in Dingwall next weekend.St Johnstone are top-six contenders again Ladbrokes Premiership table pic.twitter.com/1gslsw4Qz5 SPFL (@spfl) March 8, 2020Tommy Wrights side bottom of the league at the start of December put themselves a point off sixth-placed Hibernian and cut the gap on Livingston to three points thanks to Callum Hendrys late winner against the West Lothian side. They also have a game in hand against Rangers and travel to Easter Road next Saturday. With a run of just two defeats in 15 league games, the Perth men are a major threat to Hibs.Leigh Griffiths is making an irresistible case for Scotland selectionLeigh Griffiths took the match ball home (Andrew Milligan/PA)The Celtic striker netted his first hat-trick in four years to make it eight goals in 13 games this year after finding the net only three times in a 2019 which was beset by mental health and other fitness problems. Griffiths had declared himself eager and ready to make his international return on the eve of the game and Scotland boss Steve Clarke will surely pick him in a squad for the first time ahead of the Euro 2020 play-off semi-final with Israel.(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-72310761-1', 'auto', {'name': 'pacontentapi'}); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'referrer', location.origin); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension1', 'By Gavin McCafferty, PA'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension2', 'b15d601c-ce12-48d0-afcb-d3fc39958161'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension3', 'paservice:sport,paservice:sport:football'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension6', 'story'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension7', 'composite'); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension8', null); ga('pacontentapi.set', 'dimension9', 'sport:football'); ga('pacontentapi.send', 'pageview', { 'location': location.href, 'page': (location.pathname + location.search + location.hash), 'title': 'Celtic win again as Rangers bounce back \u2013 5 things from the Scottish Premiership'});