Sturrock is early managerial casualty

The season is only two games old but the Scottish Premier League claimed its first casualty yesterday when Paul Sturrock resigned as Dundee United's manager following his team's dismal start.

United remain without a point after losing 3-0 to Hibernian on Saturday and Sturrock, who helped the club win their only Scottish championship as a player in 1983, has decided to step aside. Maurice Malpas, who is coaching at the club, is likely to be among the front-runners for the vacancy.

The Hearts manager Jim Jeffries launched a scathing attack on his side after they needed two goals in the last 10 minutes to salvage a point from their match at St Johnstone last night.

"We played for just 15 minutes," he said. "Everyone who is at Hearts is there because they have the ability but they also have to have a passion to win. That ability didn't show through until we were 2-0 down. And what I can't handle is people with ability to play for Hearts but who are not putting the effort in."

Robert Tomaschek and Kris O'Neil pulled Hearts level after Keigan Parker and Graeme Jones had given the St Johnstone the lead.

Another manager less than happy with the effort shown by his team was Dick Advocaat, whose Rangers side prepared for their Champions League qualifier against the Danish side Herfolge on Wednesday with a 4-2 win at Kilmarnock.

Two goals from Andy McLaren gave Kilmarnock a 2-0 lead inside the first 10 minutes and they were overhauled only after Kevin McGowne had been sent off. Billy Dodds scored twice to level the scores, with the substitutes Kenny Miller and Tugay Kerimoglu sealing Rangers' second win.

"The players still seem to think they're playing friendlies," said Advocaat. "If you saw the way we played in the first half and gave the goals away . . . you don't see that in amateur football. The only good thing is that we know that we've got to play better.

"We've not had a damaging result, which is the only thing I can take out of this game."

Celtic maintained their 100 per cent start with a 1-0 win over Motherwell. Martin O'Neill's side had Jackie McNamara and Chris Sutton, on his home debut, sent off, but Stilian Petrov's goal secured the points. John Davies, the brother of Motherwell's coach Billy Davies, was also shown the red card.

"I thought Sutton's sending off was pretty hard on the lad," said O'Neill. "I was surprised at both his bookings."

Dundee are the early league leaders, thanks to their new Argentine strike force of Fabian Caballero and Juan Sera. Both scored penalties in the 3-0 win over Dunfermline at Dens Park.

Aberdeen, who play Bohemians in the first qualifying round for the Uefa Cup on Thursday, warmed up with a 2-1 win over St Mirren, Mark Perry's last-minute header giving them their first win of the season. Arild Stavrum had given Aberdeen the lead with a penalty, before Ricky Gillies equalised for St Mirren.

"I don't know a lot about the Irish side, except that they have a very cool name," said Stavrum. "We expect it to be a hard game but hopefully they will be as laid-back as their name suggests."

Peterhead won their debut match in the Third Division, beating Montrose 2-0 in front of a crowd of 700. The league's other newcomers, Elgin City, were less fortunate, losing 2-1 to Brechin City.