Rangers last night proved that the more things change the more they stay the same. The club celebrated the centenary of their stadium and then beat Hearts with a 90th minute goal from Jorg Albertz. It may not have been pretty, but it was a reminder that they can rely on sheer resolution when all else fails.

Albertz shot home through a crowd of players to seal an important win. It guarantees them a place at the top when the league goes into its mid-winter break.

Not until the German's goal did the teams persuade the fans that there was any reason to do other than hurl abuse for 90 minutes.

Hearts may have bought a whole clutch of new players but as a team there did not appear to be much confidence about them. In those circumstances they did the obvious thing, cluttering up the midfield and using a spare defender too.

Rangers were invited to penetrate this system and it took them a long time to work it out for themselves. In fact, nothing at all happened in an exceedingly long first half.

The ploy was particularly troublesome for Andrei Kanchelskis, who may have cost Stg£5.5 million but who has been used sparingly by Dick Advocaat. The winger could hardly get in a cross, and with Barry Ferguson looking like a man desperately in need of a holiday, Rangers were completely flat.

Rangers: Charbonnier, Numan (Durie 67), Vidmar (McCann 45), Moore, Amoruso, Albertz, Van Bronckhorst, B Ferguson, Kanchelskis, Dodds, Wallace. Subs Not Used: Nicholson, I Ferguson, Myhre. Booked: Dodds, Numan. Goals: Albertz 90.

Hearts: Niemi, Naysmith, Pressley, Petric, Simpson, Murray, Locke, Leclercq, Cameron, Adam (Kirk 76), McSwegan (Milne 76). Subs Not Used: Rousset, Fulton, Severin. Booked: Cameron, Leclercq, Adam. Attendance: 50,063.

Referee: S Dougal (Scotland).