Saturday 31 October 2015 19:28, UK
Hearts moved above Aberdeen into second place in the Scottish Premiership with an impressive 4-0 victory over Partick at Firhill.
Thistle performed well until they went behind seven minutes before the interval when Osman Sow took advantage of hesitant defending to set up Juanma Delgado for an easy tap in after Ryan Scully saved a header from Danny Swanson's free-kick.
Sow doubled the advantage four minutes after the break when the ball broke back to him off Liam Lindsay, following a neat turn at the edge of the box and the Hearts striker kept his composure to clip past the goalkeeper.
Hearts sealed the victory on 64 minutes when Arnaud Djoum went down under a clumsy challenge from Lindsay, and Juanma placed his spot-kick into the bottom right corner.
The situation got worse for Thistle when Scully was dismissed on 86 minutes when he brought down Sow, who converted the resulting penalty past midfielder Ryan Stevenson who had to take over between the sticks.
Dundee United won their first match under new manager Mixu Paatelainen to move to within two points of Thistle at the foot of the table.
United had dominated much of the game but had to settle for a late Billy McKay goal to beat Ross County 1-0 at Tannadice.
McKay tucked away a penalty with nine minutes remaining after Martin Woods had brought down Scott Fraser.
United then had Aidan Connolly dismissed for a reckless challenge on former United midfielder Michael Gardyne on the edge of the penalty area six minutes into stoppage-time.
But the home side survived the resulting free-kick to give Paatelainen a first victory at his third attempt.
St Johnstone took advantage of County's defeat to move into fourth place with a 4-2 victory at Hamilton.
Saints opened the scoring on 40 minutes when former Accies defender Brian Easton crossed for Graham Cummins to net with a header.
And three minutes after the break Cummins struck again from cvlose-range when he reacted quickly as Michael McGovern was unable to hold a shot.
Saints added a third on 63 minutes when Liam Craig set up David Wotherspoon to blast the ball home.
Michael O'Halloran then beat McGovern with a powerful striker from 20 yards just four minutes later to secure the win in style.
Accies continued to battle though and were rewarded when Jesus Garcia Tena (81) scored with a superb free-kick, before he added a second from the penalty spot five minutes later.
Inverness Caley rescued a point in a 1-1 draw with Dundee despite playing with 10 men for almost the entire second half.
Caley Thistle defender David Raven was dismissed four minutes after the break when he denied Greg Steward a goal scoring opportunity.
Rory Loy stepped up when the dust had settled to send Owain Fon Williams the wrong way from the penalty spot to give the visitors the lead.
But Greg Tansey sunk a penalty at the other end of the pitch on 64 minutes after Kevin Holt conceded the spot-kick.
And in the other Premiership encounter Motherwell beat Kilmarnock 1-0 at Rugby Park after substitute Louis Moult fired home four minutes from time.
