Rampant Rangers stormed five points clear of Celtic at the top of the cinch Premiership with a 5-0 hammering of Hearts at Ibrox.
Midfielder Mohamed Diomande fired the home side ahead with just over a minute played and wide-man Oscar Cortes doubled that lead after 37 minutes with his first goal as a Light Blues player, with striker Cyriel Dessers adding a third and fourth just before and after the break.
Philippe Clement’s side kept pushing and substitute Fabio Silva scored a fifth just after the hour mark with Rangers’ biggest home win of the season piling pressure on Celtic, who take on Motherwell at Fir Park on Sunday knowing there is no room for error.
The Ibrox side, who were paired with Benfica in the Europa League last-16 draw on Friday, were high on confidence after winning their previous nine matches.
However, they were without injured Todd Cantwell with Tom Lawrence one of four changes along with Ridvan Yilmaz, Dujon Sterling and Dessers. Kemar Roofe was back on the bench after two months out and would make a late appearance.
Hearts had reason to believe they could cause an upset despite three defeats out of three against the Govan side this season.
Steven Naismith’s men were unbeaten in 12 matches in all competitions and captain Lawrence Shankland led the league goalscoring charts with 18 goals in 26 counters for club and country so far this season.
However, the Tynecastle outfit, who had Nathaniel Atkinson, Jorge Grant and Kenneth Vargas back in the side, were stunned by the loss of the early goal.
Hearts were in their shape when 20-year-old Cortes came in from the left and set up Diomande but he sized up the shot from 20 yards and drilled the ball low past Gorgie keeper Zander Clark, his second Rangers goal after scoring his first last week against St Johnstone.
The football was frantic.
A lung-bursting run by Dessers ended up with his shot saved by Clark, who made an even better save from skipper James Tavernier’s powerful drive moments later.
Dessers should have had the ball in the net in the 18th minute after Clark had parried a long-distance drive from Yilmaz but the Jambos keeper saved his header and then his shot, although the offside flag was up.
The Gers striker then headed a Yilmaz cross past the post with only Clark to beat.
Just as Hearts worked their way back into the game, they conceded a second with Lawrence taking a Sterling pass and motoring forward before squaring for Cortes and he curled the ball low past the diving Clark, who was soon picking the ball out of his net again when Dessers side-footed a John Souttar cross past him.
The Jambos defence failed to deal with Sterling’s cross into the box early in the second half and Dessers lashed the ball into the net from close range, the goal surviving a VAR check for handball.
Silva and Ross McCausland replaced Lawrence and Sterling before Tavernier’s cut-back across the six-yard box evaded the sliding Dessers.
But there was no respite for the visitors.
In the 65th minute, midfielder John Lundstram slid in Silva and his angled-drive beat Clark and found the far corner.
The distressed Gorgie side kept on going.
Gers keeper Jack Butland was beaten by a Shankland header but the ball rebounded off the post and Rangers escaped, with Butland making a decent save from Grant’s 25-yard free-kick and substitute Kyosuke Tagawa’s curling strike.
However, another clean sheet was registered by the home side and they will travel to Kilmarnock on Wednesday with increasing title belief.
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
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