The first day of the second weekend of matches has come and gone in the Scottish Premiership. Let’s recap.
The second Saturday of the season saw Celtic put in another dominant performance, Kilmarnock continue to slide, and Hearts continue to struggle.
Hearts of Midlothian 0 – 0 Ross County
A very ugly game in more ways than one. First off, the pitch was all ruined at Tynecastle as there had been an orchestra concert. Supposedly it had no impact on the playability of the pitch but it certainly didn’t look good on video.
The game may have finished as a 0-0 draw but Ross County looked, easily, the stronger side. Controlled the game from start to finish, had the majority of chances, and Hearts looked anemic.
While Hearts of Midlothian can at least come away feeling somewhat good about putting in a terrible performance and still getting a point, this is worrying. They had a decent outing opening at Aberdeen where they lost after going down to 10 men, this was a flat performance. Hearts of Midlothian must figure out what they are doing.
On the other side, Ross County will come away frustrated that they couldn’t find a goal for all of their solid play to get three points, but should still feel excellent about sitting with 4 points after two matches for the newly-promoted side. Few thought that they would be in danger of bouncing back to the Championship, but they are off to a very solid start.
Hamilton Academical 2 – 0 Kilmarnock
Oof.
Hamilton got slaughtered opening day at Ross County which meant that most were looking to this match as a good chance for Kilmarnock to finally get something positive and oh baby did that not happen. Kilmarnock did have the majority of possession and were unfortunate to not get a goal, Owain Williams made some excellent saves for Hamilton, but giving up two goals to Hamilton is a terrible look.
To add insult to injury, Hamilton was put down to 10 men fairly early in the second half, and still, Kilmarnock was unable to capitalize.
Kilmarnock must find some results and fast before their season has totally spiralled out of control.
For Hamilton, it looks like they will have a shot to continue their magic act of just barely picking up enough points here and there to remain in the top flight. It will be a challenge, but getting all three points in games like this is exactly how they have done it in the past.
Motherwell 2 – 5 Celtic
Motherwell got off to a nice start by having some decent possession early and scoring a goal in just the 12th minute of the match, but their joy was short-lived. Celtic came out and scored just two minutes later and piled on from there. Motherwell would get their second goal in injury time to improve the goal differential a bit but this was another utterly dominating performance for Celtic.
For Celtic, they have to continue to be confident off of this. In both their Premiership matches they’ve dominated and they are in good position to advance in Champions League qualifying. They remain the team to beat and are in excellent form.
For Motherwell, this performance would be much easier to swallow if they hadn’t drawn to Livingston last week.
St Johnstone 2 – 2 Livingston
Livingston will come away, for the second straight week, feeling that they were the better side and disappointed to not take all three points.
Livingston scored a pair of goals in the first half and looked to be well on their way to a convincing three points, but St. Johnstone got going in the second half, although one of the goals came off of a huge mistake by Livingston on a poor back-pass.
The real gut-punch for Livi is that they had a penalty kick which was blocked in the closing moments.
Despite only having two points to show for it, Livingston have looked rock-solid in their first two weeks and can take comfort in the fact that they have not looked like the uncompetitive side that was headed for relegation that many had predicted.
For St. Johnstone, even if it wasn’t pretty, getting some sort of result after a poor cup showing and opening day pounding by Celtic is big. They have a difficult season ahead of them and there is a good chance that every point will count.