Scottish Premiership roundup: Lyons inspires Kilmarnock win over Rangers
Rangers’ Premiership title challenge suffered the earliest of blows with a shock 1-0 defeat by Kilmarnock in the opening day of the season.
Michael Beale’s disjointed side had laboured in the first half at Rugby Park and there was no improvement after the break before they were stunned by Brad Lyons’ counter after 65 minutes.
The 26-year-old Northern Irishman pounced inside the box to fire the home side ahead and in the end it was enough to keep the three points in Ayrshire. The defeat was a huge setback for the Light Blues manager who has signed nine new players so far.
Beale knows the margin for error over 38 games in the traditional two-horse title race in Scotland is slim and there is little time for ironing things out on the training ground - the first leg of their Champions League qualifier against Servette is at Ibrox on Wednesday night.
The home side were deserved winners and Killie midfielder Lyons took advantage of John Souttar dallying on the ball in his own penalty area to prod the ball past goalkeeper the visitor’s Jack Butland after 65 minutes played.
Post-match, Beale commented to the BBC Scotland: “Kilmarnock defended extremely well and tried to play on the counter attack and they were dangerous at that all day. They were comfortable in the game and I thought they defended really, really well. A really poor opening day result for us and we need to move forward quickly.”
It’s one game but we need to bounce back. We were unfortunate in not getting a result but Kilmarnock played well and I don’t want to take anything away from them.”
Late goals from Yutaro Oda and Lawrence Shankland gave Hearts a winning start in the league as they defeated St Johnstone 2-0 at McDiarmid Park. In a closely-fought game, Oda made the breakthrough with 15 minutes to go, drilling an unstoppable low shot past Dimitar Mitov. Shankland rubbed salt into the St Johnstone wounds by tapping in with almost the last kick of the game to double the advantage.
Dundee marked their return to the Premiership by coming from behind to salvage a 1-1 draw against Motherwell at Dens Park. Theo Bair, who signed for the Steelmen earlier this week, enjoyed a dream debut as he opened the scoring at the end of the first half. The hosts drew level after the break through midfielder Lyall Cameron with both sides ultimately having to settle for a share of the spoils.
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Aberdeen picked up a point from a goalless draw after failing to register a single shot on target in a hard-fought encounter at Livingston. Livingston finished the game strongly and at least asked questions of Dons goalkeeper Kelle Roos with efforts from Cristian Montano and Ayo Obileye. There was little for the 4,000-strong Aberdeen fans to get excited about although Johnny Hayes will be kicking himself that he did not at least find the target from a good position at the back post in the early stages of the second period.