@splstats looks at some of the numbers behind the weekend games, with the focus on Hearts, Celtic, Rangers, Falkirk, Dunfermline Athletic and East Fife.
5 Heart of Midlothian defeated Partick Thistle 1-0 at Tynecastle to move to within six points of second-placed Aberdeen. Robbie Neilson’s side have now won five consecutive home Premiership matches, the first time they have won five in a row at Tynecastle in the top flight since April-August 2006, when Neilson was still playing. The Jam Tarts have lost just one league game at Tynecastle this season; that came against Aberdeen back in September. They are unbeaten in 10 home league games since then, having picked up seven wins and three draws.
14 Rangers and Celtic will face each other in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup after both securing comfortable victories at the weekend. Amazingly, this is the first time in 14 seasons that both Rangers and Celtic have made it to the semi-final stage of the Scottish Cup in the same year. The last time was back in 2001/02, when the sides met in the final and a late Peter Lovenkrands goal took the trophy to Ibrox. The other semi-final will see Dundee United facing off against the winner of the Hibernian v Inverness Caledonian Thistle replay a week on Wednesday. United reached their third Scottish Cup semi in four years following a dramatic 3-2 victory over Ross County.
10 Falkirk moved up to second place in the Ladbrokes Championship after defeating Alloa Athletic 2-0 at the Falkirk Stadium. Since losing to Hibernian in October, Peter Houston’s side have gone 10 home matches without defeat in all competitions, picking up eight wins and two draws. They have conceded just six goals in those matches, and have kept five clean sheets in the process. Saturday’s victory continued the Bairns’ impressive home record against Alloa – the Wasps have not beaten them in Falkirk in 14 attempts. Their last victory came at Brockville in August 1983, when goals from Willie Garner, Frank Cole, David Lloyd and Gary Thompson handed them a 4-2 win.
89 Dunfermline Athletic defeated Stenhousemuir 5-0 at East End Park to move 10 points clear at the top of Ladbrokes League 1. The Pars have been in incredible goalscoring form this season, with Saturday’s victory being the sixth time that they have scored five or more goals. In total, they have found the net 89 times in their 36 matches in all competitions, an average of just under 2.5 goals per game. Their haul of 89 is already their best goal tally for any season since 1993/94, when they found the net 104 times in 50 matches across four different competitions.
1 East Fife moved to the top of the Ladbrokes League 2 table after defeating previous leaders Elgin City 3-1 at Borough Briggs. It was Elgin’s first home league defeat of the season, ending their club record unbeaten national league run at 12 matches. This is the fourth time that Gary Naysmith’s side have held the lead in the division this season; on each previous occasion they have dropped points the following week to relinquish their lead. They may lose their spot without even playing a game this time around – Elgin have the chance to move back to the summit when they face Stirling Albion in their game in hand on Tuesday.
