Hearts 4-0 Dundee: Derek McInnes' side extend Scottish Premiership lead to nine points with dominant victory
Report as Hearts beat Dundee at Tynecastle Park; Derek McInnes side sit nine points clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership table
Saturday 1 November 2025 20:27, UK
Hearts returned to winning ways with an emphatic 4-0 win over Dundee at Tynecastle to move nine points clear at the top of the William Hill Premiership.
Goals from Lawrence Shankland and Landry Kabore in the space of seven first-half minutes had the hosts 2-0 up by the interval, with Kabore adding a second before substitute Tomas Magnusson bagged his first goal for the club.
The Jambos, who had been held by St Mirren in midweek, took advantage of second-placed Celtic's involvement in Sunday's Premier Sports Cup semi-final against Rangers to extend their lead at the top.
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Hearts remain undefeated in 11 league games this season, while back-to-back defeats leave Dundee second-bottom of the pile.
Jambos boss Derek McInnes made three changes from their 2-2 draw with St Mirren, as Michael Steinwender, Blair Spittal and Kabore came in for Craig Halkett, Stephen Kingsley and Claudio Braga, all of whom were on the bench. Dundee made one change from the side that lost at Falkirk last weekend, as Billy Koumetio replaced Luke Graham.
Hearts' Harry Milne was the first player to get a sight of goal after four minutes, but sent his low shot fizzing past the left post.
Spittal played a short corner to Milne on the right after 21 minutes, but his curling effort flew over the top left corner.
Cameron Congreve nearly opened the scoring for Dundee in 29th minute with a vicious, curling effort from about 25 yards that forced a terrific save from Alexander Schwolow to push it on to the left post.
But Hearts opened the scoring in the 31st minute when Milne sent a great ball into the box for Shankland to drill into the bottom right corner for his 10th goal of the season.
Hearts doubled their lead after 38 minutes when Milne's corner from the left bounced around the box and fell to Kabore, who slammed into the net from close range for his first Hearts goal.
Kabore put Hearts 3-0 up in the 56th minute, following in with a slammed finish after Spittal's shot cannoned off the crossbar and landed in his path.
Simon Murray thought he had pulled a goal back for Dundee in the 62nd minute, racing on to a through ball to net into the bottom left corner, only to be flagged offside.
Alex Kyziridis saw a 22-yard free-kick brilliantly saved by Jon McCracken in the 80th minute, but the same player took a corner that was knocked in by sub Magnusson to wrap up the points.
Braga neatly added a fifth inside stoppage time, but Dundee goalkeeper McCracken blocked well with his foot.
McInnes: Players rise to Celtic challenge
Hearts boss Derek McInnes:
"We said the point at St Mirren (in midweek) would be a brilliant and important point if we won today, and that's the way it has been.
"A few weeks ago we set a challenge to players, 'can we be above Celtic before we play them?'. And then 'can we be top of the league after the first round of fixtures?'.
"We've boxed off that little section now and we need to go again for the start of the next round.
"It's a good reference point for me in the sense of what can be done, and there are some difficult fixtures amongst that, some difficult challenges, and I feel as though the squad's getting stronger.
"We have a couple of borderline suspensions with Craig Halkett and Harry Milne, but we're getting a few back.
"Once we got in front, and it was a brilliant goal from Lawrence, like all good teams I thought we never looked back from that.
"We scored some good goals today and I'm delighted for big Landry to get off the mark, I thought he led the line brilliantly with Lawrence, and it was good to get the last goal from Tomas to finish off the game with a bit of polish.
"We looked a wee bit leggy at times but we were in charge of the game, which is the most important thing."
Pressley: Dundee in the game until opening goal
Dundee boss Steven Pressley:
"We came here and had a genuine quiet belief around maybe getting a result here. We've demonstrated that against some of the best teams, that when we get it right we can be competitive.
"I thought we started the game reasonably aggressively in the first 30 minutes, I didn't think we gave up many opportunities and frustrated Hearts without causing them too many problems, apart from Cam Congreve's effort.
"We then lost a really poor goal and a second one quite quickly after that. One of the real disappointments for me is that we came into this game as the only side not to lose a goal from a corner kick, and we lost two today.
"When you come to the top-of-the-table team, the one thing you can't do is lose two goals from set plays. That's really disappointing, because we really pride ourselves on that organisation."
