Hearts v Rangers

Hearts vs Rangers Preview

Hearts will play host to Rangers in this season opener in the Scottish Premiership on Saturday lunchtime at Tynecastle Park with the hosts looking to close the gap on the big two clubs on the domestic stage, while Rangers will want to take over from their Old Firm rivals, Celtic, as the best of the Scottish top flight teams this season.

Hearts achieved a creditable third place finish at the end of last season's Premiership campaign and therefore claimed the ‘best of the rest' tag behind the usual suspects Celtic and Rangers thanks to being dealt just one defeat in their final eight games of last term.

That defeat came in the shape of a heavy 3-0 loss away from home at Celtic but The Jambos also picked up three wins within this eight-game period which came by way of wins against St Mirren, Livingston and Dundee respectively.

In addition, Hearts made themselves a very tough side to beat on home soil at their Tynecastle Park as the hosts suffered just a single defeat in their final 14 games which was a 1-0 loss to Saturday's opponents, Rangers, but Hearts also collected no fewer than nine wins within this period as well, making them a potentially dangerous opponent for visitors Rangers here on Saturday.

Onto Rangers, and although they narrowly missed out on finishing top of the Scottish Premiership table at the end of the regular season, The Gers ended up finding themselves eight points adrift of their old rivals at the conclusion of the Championship Round as they had to make do with a place in the Champions League qualifiers.

All had seemingly been going well in the blue half of Glasgow as Rangers had put together an impressive nine-game winning streak from the turn of the new year through to the end of February, with four of these nine wins being achieved on their travels.

Wins on the road at Hibernian, St Mirren, St Johnstone and Kilmarnock had thrust Rangers into serious contention for claiming top spot but subsequent results since that purple patch of form left a lot to be desired.

The visitors managed to capture just a further four wins in their subsequent 10 league matches and three defeats at the hands of Motherwell, Ross County and Celtic finally put paid to any aspirations Gers may have had in claiming an automatic Champions League spot.

Rangers also recorded just one win in their final five games on the road which will give Hearts plenty of confidence in pulling off an upset early on in this season's campaign.

Hearts v Rangers Verdict

Hearts have been tough to beat at home while Rangers' form away from home was certainly questionable towards the end of last season.

Three of the last four meetings have only produced a goal for one side.

Therefore, our main bet will be BTTS No @ 2.20

Other side bets worth considering:

Hearts win @ 4.75

Correct Score: Hearts 2-0 @ 29.00