Anyone who doubted Hearts’ ability to sustain a title challenge must surely be coming round to the idea now.<\/p>\n
It is little wonder there were sceptics considering they were languishing at the bottom of the table this time last year.<\/p>\n
However, they are a different animal since McInnes became head coach this summer and benefited from a transfer window guided by Tony Bloom’s analytics team.<\/p>\n
Having also beaten Celtic twice, Hearts have become the first side to win four consecutive top-flight meetings with the Glasgow duo since Dundee in 1985.<\/p>\n
Win the derby against Hibernian at Easter Road next weekend and they face a stretch of winnable fixtures before they get a chance to record a fifth consecutive victory over the Old Firm, when Celtic visit at the end of January.<\/p>\n
Missing the defensive solidity of the injured Craig Halkett, Hearts made a shaky start, but Rangers were made to rue early misses and their own lack of depth at the back.<\/p>\n
With Nassir Djiga at the Africa Cup of Nations, Rohl went with a back three containing two players more recognised as full-backs, but it was the normally reliable Butland who was Rangers’ biggest villain.<\/p>\n
A wayward clearance for Hearts’ first goal and poor positioning for the second were crucial in a defeat that leaves Rangers’ own title chances looking increasingly slim.<\/p>\n
Rohl has steadied the ship since Hearts’ last win over Rangers went some way to ending Russell Martin’s reign as head coach, but he needs a significant January transfer window if they are to even challenge for second, never mind the title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone who doubted Hearts’ ability to sustain a title challenge must surely be coming round to the idea…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-362894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}