Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MIND THE GAP GERS
Lennon challenges title rivals to keep pace as his Hoops breeze past Hearts
DELIGHTED Neil Lennon last night challenged rivals Rangers to cope with the pressure of falling further behind their Premiership slipstream.
A 2-0 win over Hearts at Tynecastle takes the champions five points clear of their nearest rivals with the Light Blues next up for a trip to capital against Hibs tomorrow.
First half goals from Ryan Christie and Olivier Ntcham inflicted more misery on new Jambos boss Daniel Stendel and the damage could had been more severe had the Hoops not passed up a host of scoring chances.
But Lennon declared himself happy with a result which he believes gives notice to Steven Gerrard’s men over the shrinking margin for error.
He said: “I was pleased with a lot of the performances. More importantly the manner we approached the game because we knew Hearts would be up and at it and they were.
“It puts pressure on the rest of the teams around us to win their games. That’s what we set out to do tonight, win the game and we’ve done that with a bit of style as well.
“I can’t ask any more apart from putting even more of an emphatic scoreline on it.
“The players will now get a couple of days rest and we look forward to a difficult game at the weekend.” Lennon will now get his players prepared to host Aberdeen this weekend and he admits the one failing in Edinburgh was not making the most of their chances and burying Hearts under a goals avalanche.
He said: “We had two great chances before half-time and great chances in the second half to go 3-0 or 4-0 up and if we’d done that we could have ran riot.
“But the intensity and quality of our play at times was outstanding on a very difficult surface. We looked good, it’s another clean sheet against a team who were very much up for the game and played with a lot of pride.
“But we saw that off and it was a good job, we’re in a good place. I want us to get better as we go along and we’re not letting up. The midfield functioned well and the front three have been brilliant all season.”
Lennon opted to keep his own counsel after insisting he was left perturbed at a catalogue of decisions by referee Bobby Madden in a match with six bookings. The Hoops gaffer said: “I was exasperated, yes. We’ll leave it at that. The referee is a top referee… I’m allowed to get exasperated at some decisions sometimes.”
Hearts boss Stendel is still searching for some positives after his second game in charge.
One small comfort is that he believes the display was a step forward from a defeat to St Johnstone last Saturday where his team were booed off the park.
The German will now look towards the weekend clash at Hamilton as the launchpad to get them off the bottom of the table.
He said: Everyone can see it was a step forward. We’d like to step forward so much more than just a small step but there is a good feeling we can do it.
“Saturday is the next game and the next big step is to win some points with my players being more invested in the game.
“We need to get points and get our confidence back. I hope some of the injured players come back and we have a good future.
“We wanted to change our performance here from the performance on Saturday and we did it well.
“After the first 20 minutes or so, it was hard for my team to accept going 1-0 down to the first shot but when you make mistakes and you’re playing against a team with Celtic’s quality, this can happen.”