The second day of the second match week has come and gone in the Scottish Premiership with two different matches. Let’s recap.
Both Scottish teams competing in Europa League were in action on Sunday with Rangers facing Hibernian at Ibrox and Aberdeen heading to St. Mirren. Let’s recap how things went.
Rangers 6 – 1 Hibernian
This is a Rangers blog. You probably know what happened here. Rangers obliterated Hibernian the entire match and the flood-gates properly opened when Hibernian went down to 10 men. Jermaine Defoe had a hat-trick, Alfredo Morelos came on to replace him and got a brace in under 20 minutes of game-time, Sheyi Ojo added one in what was literally the last action of the match.
Hibernian did get one goal off of an excellent through-ball from Scott Allan but this was a pounding through and through. Hibernian rarely threatened and the pressure was constant from Rangers.
For Rangers, it is an excellent result against a club that they had significant issues with last season and an emphatic reply to that they are not going to sleep-walk after a huge result in Europe.
For Hibernian, it was a butt-whooping which is hugely disappointing. It wasn’t even that they gave up 6 goals, it was the fact that even without the goals they were utterly dominated the entire match. This game could’ve ended 3-1 and we would still be talking about the degree to which Rangers dominated proceedings.
Rangers keep pace with Celtic (though are still behind on goal differential) and Hibernian fall back in the table.
St. Mirren 1 – 0 Aberdeen
This does not bode well for Aberdeen’s second leg against Rijeka.
Aberdeen went on the road against St. Mirren and failed to even get a draw. St. Mirren struck early, in just the 13th-minute play went up the right-wing before a square-pass found Turkish international Ilkay Durmas who blasted a low shot near-post for a goal.
No more goals were scored, though neither side had a clear advantage in chances.
Aberdeen losing to St. Mirren is a very poor result for them even if St. Mirren have actually looked much improved in the early proceedings of the season. The hope is that they may be overlooked the match to their second Europa League leg and will be ready to go in that match.
For St. Mirren, an excellent result and they have to be pleased with the way the season has started. After they were nearly relegated and looked mostly lost all of last season they have looked a much more competitive side in the opening moments of this season. Even if they didn’t get a result against Hibernian they looked solid, and then getting all three points against Aberdeen is a great move for them.