Sir Alex Ferguson watched on as Hearts defeated Aberdeen 1-0 to move seven points clear of Rangers at the top of the Scottish Premiership.
Ferguson, the last manager to win the title with a team that was not Celtic or Rangers when his Aberdeen side were back-to-back champions from 1983-85, was at Tynecastle as a guest of the Hearts coach, Derek McInnes, and he saw Cláudio Braga score what proved to be the only goal of the game just before the half-hour mark.
Hearts had enough chances to have won more convincingly, but their supporters greeted the full-time whistle with jubilation as they stretched their lead over Rangers and Celtic, who face each other at Ibrox on Sunday.
There were two changes to the Hearts side that started last weekend’s victory over Falkirk as Jamie McCart and Landry Kaboré replaced Stuart Findlay and Islam Chesnokov. The Aberdeen interim manager, Peter Leven, made three changes to the side that started Tuesday’s 0-0 draw at Dundee United as the goalkeeper, Per Kristian Bråtveit, Tom McIntyre and Kenan Bilalovic were replaced by Dimitar Mitov, Liam Morrison and Topi Keskinen.
Aberdeen had not won at Tynecastle since May 2017 and they swiftly found themselves on the back foot as Hearts, backed by a pumped-up home support, started strongly. Tómas Magnússon had the hosts’ first chance in the fourth minute when he headed wide from Blair Spittal’s cross.
