Rangers guaranteed European football after Lafferty and Naismith sink Hibs

Rangers will be guaranteed at least some European football next season after Hearts defeated Hibs 2-1 at Tynecastle this evening, cementing their rivals’ place in 4th.

Fourth place will still qualify for European football, but only if Motherwell beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup final, which is sadly quite unlikely. Still, it’s nice to have it in the bag.

Kyle Lafferty and Steven Naismith, two old Rangers boys, did the damage in a fiery affair.

So, the possibility of having no European football at all next season is at least over. However, there’s still a fair bit to play for - avoiding one extra qualifier with a 2nd place finish (for which we will need to best Aberdeen’s result against Celtic - so at least take a point at Easter Road) is important. But so is the opportunity to start our season later and give our expected raft of new signings time to gel and bed in.

Sunday will see all that decided. And as for those potential new recruits, we should have some updates coming soon.