Scottish Premiership: Shankland on the spot to ease pressure on McInnes and Rangers

Lawrence Shankland’s second-half penalty gave Derek McInnes and Rangers some much-needed respite with a 1-0 win against Aberdeen at Pittodrie.

The tale since the Rangers manager arrived from Hearts in the summer has been one of constant change in formation and personnel amid exits from two European competitions and a poor start to the Premiership campaign. The Ibrox side turned in a better performance than many of late and in the 69th minute the captain, Shankland, a former Don, converted a spot-kick won by Djeidi Gassama.

The Aberdeen captain, Kevin Nisbet, had the ball in the Rangers net in the 81st minute but was judged to have pushed the full-back Dujon Sterling and the goal was ruled out.

McInnes has brought in 12 players including Kim Min-su, the 20-year-old South Korean winger signed from Girona on a four-year deal for a reported fee of about £8.5m, and who performed well on debut before he was replaced in the second half. Progress is proving frustratingly slow for their fans but three hard-fought points will bring some positivity to Ibrox.

“Probably for the first time this season, I’ve really enjoyed watching the team,” said McInnes. “There’s been moments of enjoyment. There’s been a couple of wins and some passages of play, but we know when you come here you can’t be sparkling for 90 minutes but you need to compete, and you need to bring quality, and I thought we did all that in abundance today.

Derek McInnes congratulates Ben Godfrey after the final whistle. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA“Strong performance, deserved win. I thought we were good in the game. I thought we looked like a team, a sense of the team that I would like us to be. I think the added bit of quality from Min-su at the top of the pitch was much needed. We’ve been looking for that for a while now, so it’s great that we managed to get him in. Any sort of win today was vitally important for obvious reasons. So the fact of the matter is we’ve won a tough away game, and deservedly so.”

The debutant Jardell Kanga scored a stoppage-time equaliser to earn Motherwell a 3-3 draw with St Mirren in a pulsating clash in Paisley. Goals from Tawanda Maswanhise, who also had a first-half penalty saved, and Regan Charles-Cook had the visitors in control in the early stages. Saints, though, recovered and scored three times before half-time through Paul Nsio, Declan John and Samuel Ramos to lead going into the closing stages. Motherwell had one final chance and the Swede Kanga, signed two days earlier from Finland’s Ilves, lashed a volley high into the net to snatch a point for his new side.

Hibernian secured a narrow but deserved victory over Dundee at Dens Park. Martin Boyle fired the visitors into the lead in the first half with Callum Wright doubling their advantage after the break. Dundee netted late on through Joe Westley but the Edinburgh side held on to take all three points, with the victory moving the capital club up to fifth as the hosts dropped down to fourth.

On Saturday, Camilo Durán, in his preferred position of centre-forward, scored both goals for Celtic in their 2-1 win over Falkirk. The Colombian hit two striker’s goals in the opening 29 minutes and set up several teammates for chances. Falkirk improved after the break and their ambition was rewarded by Colby Donovan’s own goal in the 72nd minute.

The win continued Celtic’s perfect start to the domestic season, but it was preceded by a display of frustration over the club’s inability to secure Champions League qualification after a four-goal aggregate lead was squandered in Thursday’s 5-1 defeat by Lask.

The Celtic ultras mocked the club board’s declaration that they aim to be “world class” in everything they do with banners listing the teams who have beaten Celtic in the Champions League qualifiers in the past 14 years, below one that read “‘world class’ embarrassment”.

However, fans got behind the team throughout the afternoon and one chant of “sack the board” emanating from the standing section did not take off around the rest of Celtic Park.

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Fans hold up banners with the names of teams that have eliminated Celtic from Europe. Photograph: Stuart Wallace/ShutterstockHearts held firm at the end of a gruelling week to close out an unconvincing 2-1 home win over St Johnstone and climb to second in the table. Buoyed by their midweek Conference League playoff triumph away to Rapid Vienna Hearts were good value for their two-goal lead after James Wilson’s early strike was followed by a second that went down as an own goal from the Saints debutant Enes Alic.

But the hosts faded after the break and they were left clinging on in the closing stages after Ruari Paton pulled one back for the visitors early in the second half.

Dundee United produced a fine performance in the absence of their manager, Jim Goodwin, as they thrashed Kilmarnock 4-0 at Rugby Park. Goodwin was admitted to hospital on Thursday and the club said on Saturday morning the 44-year-old “continues to deal with an ongoing medical matter”.

His players, under the guidance of assistant Lee Sharp, did him proud as three first-half goals helped ease them to a first Premiership victory of the campaign. United, who had not scored in their previous three games in all competitions, were three up by 41 minutes thanks to Emmanuel Agyei’s opener, Zac Sapsford’s penalty and a Will Ferry beauty.

Jesse Randall added a late fourth as Killie conceded for the 13th time in three top-flight matches to remain bottom of the table without a point.