Rangers v Hearts: Walter to Win to Get Gers Smiling Again?
Rangers are not enjoying the best of starts to the new season with the sale of their star defender Carlos Cuellar to Aston Villa on the back of crashing out of Europe to Lithuanian side Kaunas. However, the weekend’s match against Hearts should put a smile back on the Gers fans faces as they possess an excellent record at Ibrox against the Edinburgh giants.
Hearts have won just once in the League at Ibrox in 12 years. That’s one win in the last 24 visits to the blue side of Glasgow (19 defeats). That single win came in a 1-0 triumph in May 2004 when Craig Levein was manager. Since then the club have had eleven different men take charge of the team in either a full-time or caretaker role which sums up the upheaval at Tynecastle.
Walter Smith will not have enjoyed the opening 3 games of the season as the club lost valuable funds after their departure from European competition mere months after reaching the Uefa Cup final. However, they did win their opening SPL match albeit by a 1-0 scoreline at Falkirk. Smith has an abundance of forwards at the club with Kyle Laffety, Kenny Miller and Andrius Velicka joining the likes of Daniel Cousin, Kris Boyd and Jean-Claude Darcheville at the club. Despite the sale of Cuellar, Rangers should be too strong for Hearts this weekend.
Hearts new manager Csaba Laszio may have got off to a winning start at home to Motherwell at the weekend but a visit to Glasgow will be another matter entirely. The club that finished 8th in the SPL last season has hardly strengthened so I expect them to have a tough season especially when you consider they lost 9 of their 19 away games in the last campaign (5 wins). Rangers on the other hand lost once in 19 home matches (18 wins) in 2007/08 so this looks a relatively strong ‘home banker’ for Footy 15 players.
Pundit’s Pick: Rangers Return to Form (HOME WIN)
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