Hearts overcame a first-half red card for the second time in four days to beat St Mirren and remain six points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership.<\/p>\n
Beni Baningime’s 15th-minute dismissal for a horror challenge threatened to hamper Hearts’ title challenge, but second-half goals from Lawrence Shankland and Tomas Magnusson secured victory.<\/p>\n
It is the second consecutive statement win after Derek McInnes’ embattled side won with 10 man at Dundee on Sunday after goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow was sent off just before half-time.<\/p>\n
The red card came earlier in this game, and although no one could argue about the decision, it created a siege mentality around Tynecastle, leading to an atmosphere akin to a European night under the lights in Gorgie.<\/p>\n
Baningime, who has been instrumental for the league leaders, caught Roland Idowu high on the calf with his studs and, after a quick video assistant referee (VAR) check, referee Kevin Clancy upgraded the colour of his card from yellow to red.<\/p>\n
St Mirren would have the ball in the back of the net twice in the first half, through Idowu and Harry Milne’s own goal, but both were chalked off for offside.<\/p>\n
That didn’t dent Hearts’ play. Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis both missed one-on-one opportunities in the first half, and St Mirren keeper Shamal George made a great save to deny Shankland in the second.<\/p>\n
But he could do nothing to stop the Hearts’ captain on the hour mark. <\/p>\n
Blair Spittal played a fine one-two with Kyziridis before picking out Shankland in the middle, and he in turn picked out the bottom corner with a first-time finish.<\/p>\n
It got even better for Hearts when, after hard work from substitute Pierre Landry Kabore, Magnusson was able to play Milne through one-on-one. <\/p>\n
His shot was saved by George but Magnusson was there on the rebound to head home and settle any home nerves.<\/p>\n
As for St Mirren, that makes it two wins from 15 amid a mini-injury crisis, as they remain in 10th place, four points behind Dundee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hearts overcame a first-half red card for the second time in four days to beat St Mirren and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-413457","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\/413457","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=413457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}