Miller Ready For Old Firm Challenge

Two goals from in-form Kenny Miller helped Rangers fight back from a goal down at Easter Road to demolish Hibs 4-1 this afternoon. Miller has now bagged 3 doubles in 3 games and is currently showing why Walter Smith spent £2m to lure him away from Derby County last season. The comfortable win for Rangers puts them 4 points clear of Celtic with games against Celtic and Dundee United still to come in the next week.

Miller scoring his 12th of the season

Today couldn’t have started any worse for Rangers when DaMarcus Beasley was ruled out of the game with a thigh injury which gave Kyle Lafferty his chance to shine in a strong Rangers side. The game got off to the worst possible start when after 12.4 seconds Anthony Stokes fired home from close range to put Hibs in the lead. Merouaene Zemamma had a big part to play in the goal when he collected it from kick-off and dribbled his way towards goal, teasing Nacho Novo in the process before sliding a cute pass through to Stokes before the Irishman fired home a cracking finish.

Rangers had to battle for dominance in this game and dismantle  a confident Hibs side who played some excellent football in the first 20 minutes with David Wotherspoon and Zemamma impressing. The Champions responded after 21 minutes when a Kris Boyd pass sent Kenny Miller into space and he was composed to fire home a curled shot from 20 yards past the helpless Yves Makalmaby. Miller, who was brought through the Youth ranks at Easter Road was denied a stone-wall penalty just before the half-hour mark when he dribbled his way past Chris Hogg and the Hibs captain just caught Miller in his sliding attempt to win the ball.

A rampant Rangers put themselves ahead after 37 minutes when Derek Riordan was slack in possession as Kirk Broadfoot and Madjid Bougherra double-teamed to win back the ball in a wide position, Bougherra then fired a superb low cross to the feet of the predatory-figure of Kris Boyd who blasted the ball high into the roof of the net to release a high sigh of relief from the Rangers supporters who erupted in delight as Boyd got even closer to breaking the SPL record, he is now only 3 goals away from the record currently held by Henrik Larsson.

In the second-half, Rangers were the side who took control of this game and stretched their lead after 53 minutes when Nacho Novo produced a piece of good play to put himself into space on the left-hand side before a poor cross managed to go past Makalamby at his near post and put the Gers 3-1 in front.

Miller scoring his 2nd of the game past Makalamby

John Hughes pondered over many substitutions and brought on Danny Galbraith and Darren McCormack in the second half but this had no effect on the balance of power as Rangers stormed into a 4-1 lead when Kris Boyd made a lovely pass through to Kenny Miller who beat the Hibs offside trap and fired the ball past Yves Makalamby, who got a touch but should have done better as the ball rolled into the net at the annoyance of several Hibs fans behind the goal who then departed for the exits.

“Obviously, it’s a very pleasing result for us today” Said Smith after the match.

He also added “I felt we played very well after the first 20 minutes or so. I don’t think we started the game well but, after that, we played very well and I’m obviously delighted by the result.

“It wasn’t just the goal that we lost in the first seconds of the game, in the first 20 minutes of the game we never got the ball down at all and we never imposed ourselves on the game. It took us a while to get going.

“Kris Boyd’s been doing exceptionally well for us team-wise. For himself, he’s had the realisation that he has to pick himself up a bit and he’s doing that and has done for the last three or four months. He’s trying far harder team-wise but he’s still getting his goals as well, which is obviously the important thing.

“There was a lot of expectation placed on Hibs going in to today’s game. We had to work very hard to get our goals today. If you look at the game overall, until we got our fourth goal, it was an extremely tough game for us and we had to do exceptionally well to get ourselves in that position.”