Ten-man Hearts dropped three crucial points as St Mirren beat them 1-0 in Paisley, handing a blow to Derek McInnes’ side in the Scottish Premiership title race.
Hearts played more than an hour with ten men after captain Craig Halkett was shown a first-half red card for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity following a mistake and subsequent stumble in possession. St Mirren were the better side even before the sending off, and their pressure continued thereafter.
St Mirren thought they had taken the lead early when Marcus Fraser finished, but a teammate’s offside position led to the goal being ruled out. They then believed they had a penalty when Harry Milne challenged Jayden Richardson, but VAR overturned referee Steven McLean’s spot-kick decision as the foul occurred outside the area.
Hearts keeper Alexander Schwolow made a crucial early second-half save with his right shoulder to deny Mikael Mandron, and the visitors largely weathered the storm while down to ten. However, two minutes from time Miguel Freckleton rose to meet Declan John’s corner and powered a header into the net, giving St Mirren a late, decisive winner.
The victory was St Mirren’s first league win in eight matches, their fourth unbeaten in a row and moved them above Dundee into ninth, 12 points clear of the bottom. Hearts remain top but have handed Celtic and Rangers the chance to close the gap on Wednesday; they could be just three points clear before facing Hibernian next week and a top-of-the-table clash with Rangers on February 15.
St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson: “It was more like us tonight. That’s four unbeaten now, with two wins within that. We’re starting to build a little bit more momentum again… The win tonight helps us do that. The goal at the start of every season at this club is to stay in the division. The win tonight helps us do that.”
Hearts manager Derek McInnes: “Very [tough]. We’re working harder than we want to by constantly going down to 10 men but we’ve caused that… We’re playing with fire if we keep doing it. No complaints about the red card. Our refusal to play forward gets us in a state… Credit to St Mirren, they kept going and asking questions but by and large we dealt with being a man down brilliantly up until the dying embers.”