Tenman Hearts suffered a late 1-0 defeat at Paisley’s St Mirren, dropping a vital three points in the Scottish Premiership title race.
The league leaders played for more than an hour with one man down after Craig Halkett was shown a red card in the first half, and withstood the barrage of attacks until Miguel Freckleton’s dramatic 88th-minute winner.
The Jambos remain six points clear at the top of the table but will give chasers Celtic and Rangers a chance to close the gap on Wednesday.
St Mirren, led by Stephen Robinson, have improved significantly, registering their first league win in eight games and moving past Dundee into ninth place, 12 points clear of bottom of the table.
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Miguel Freckleton’s close-range header puts St Mirren ahead against Hearts
In the end, the host team deserved the win. Even before Coach Halkett was fired, they were the better of the two.
But here the early pressure turned into an onslaught.
The substitute Hearts captain initially covered well for a mistake by defensive partner Stuart Findlay, but then stumbled in possession himself and brought down Jacob Devaney on the edge of the area to thwart a potential scoring opportunity.
And the drama of the first half didn’t end there.
St Mirren captain Marcus Fraser had the ball in the back of the net, but teammate Alex Gogic was adjudged to be in an offside position when he headed the ball off the post to tee up Fraser’s rebound.
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Craig Halkett is shown a red card for a foul!
Robinson’s side then thought they had a penalty when referee Stephen McLean pointed to the spot after Harry Milne challenged Jayden Richardson, but the decision was overturned by VAR as the foul was committed outside the penalty area.
Hearts stopper Alexander Schwolow came on again early in the second period and made a great save with his right shoulder from close range to deny Mikael Mandron.
The visitors then appeared to have weathered the storm, but with two minutes remaining Freckleton’s powerful header from a corner kick from Declan John gave them the win over the Buddies, and they were unable to repeat the heroics of last month’s winning streak due to their numerical disadvantage.
Hearts face city rivals Hibernian next week and the difference could be just three points. Next, on February 15th (Sunday), the final showdown against title rivals Rangers will be broadcast live on Sky Sports.
Sunday, February 15th 4:15pm
4:30pm kickoff
Robinson: A well-deserved victory helps our cause of survival.
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St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson said his side were turning the corner after a poor performance with a “deserved” win over league leaders Hearts, extending their unbeaten run to four games in a row.
St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson told Sky Sports:
“Tonight was more like us. We are now four unbeaten and won two of them. We are starting to get back into the swing of things again. We are starting to turn a corner. To put in a performance like that against the league leaders… it looked more like us. I thought we deserved it.”
“We had a lot of half-chances, but we should have had more. Redemptions affect the game, but we were patient and managed to get the final product.
“The way we came in was great. Our pressing was really, really good and we kept winning the ball from the opposition. We missed a couple of great chances and the penalties were overturned, but actually both decisions were correct. We’ve just seen them come back. We criticize the referees enough, but when they get the call right, you have to say.”
“As I said, we’re four games unbeaten. We’ve managed to win a cup game this season and I think people forget that too. We have another cup game on Friday night with a chance to get into the quarter-finals. This club’s goal at the start of the season is to stay in the division and tonight’s win will help us achieve that.”
Mr. McInnes: If the temperature continues to drop to 10 degrees, we’ll be playing with fire.
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Hearts head coach Derek McInnes says his team must learn from the defeat to St Mirren and also address discipline issues following another red card against the team.
Hearts manager Derek McInnes told Sky Sports.
“It’s very (tough). I thought we did what we had to do to get something out of the game. We’re always down to 10 players and we’re working harder than we thought we would, but we let that happen.”
“It’s incredible that our coping mechanisms have gone down to a 10 these days, but we’re playing with fire if we keep going like this.
“I have no complaints about the red card. Our refusal to play forward put us in a bad situation. We knew St Mirren were going to go after us. There was a 30-yard gap between our centre-backs and theirs, but we refused to play behind them.”
“We were able to get the game back up front. There were times when we were able to break through and break through the press, but we needed to play further back.
“There’s nothing better than a red card. We had two chances to play up front and we didn’t do it. In the end we put ourselves in a situation and in the end Hulks makes a last gasp challenge. I don’t blame him for that.”
“There are consequences too, you suffer here and try to take something back from the game, but then there is the ripple effect of players being suspended.
“I have no complaints about the team’s effort and what we tried to do to manage it. We achieved that recently. The team had the belief and confidence to get something out of the game, but the trouble is it came from a set-piece where numerical superiority was not an issue. We just got caught under the ball. It was a good header, but it was a free header six yards from goal. We’re playing with fire there too.”
“Credit to St Mirren. They kept asking questions, but by and large we coped with being a man beautifully reduced to the dying embers.”
