Neil Lennon draws line under Craig Levein's 'natural order'

sbo222 Hibernian head coach Neil Lennon claimed Craig Levein's comments had come back to haunt him after his side's 2-0 victory over Hearts at Easter Road.

Levein claimed Hearts had restored "natural order" when they beat Hibs for the first time in 10 games in the Scottish Cup in January, but Lennon branded their Edinburgh rivals "irrelevant" after his side moved 12 points above them in fourth place in the Ladbrokes Premiership.

Hibs dominated possession without getting in behind Hearts until Scott Allan drilled a brilliant left-footed strike into the bottom corner just before the hour mark. Jamie Maclaren wriggled his way past two players before slotting home with 10 minutes left.

Lennon branded his team "outstanding" and said: "[Hearts] are irrelevant to us now. We are looking up the table rather than what's behind us. sbo222

"Look, I don't want to give soundbites and get into another verbal spat. You make these statements and they will always come back to haunt you at some stage. It's come back to haunt them after four or five weeks."

Lennon added: "We could have won the game by more. We have handled the psychology of a big game, again, very, very well and we have got the bragging rights back, for how long, who knows?

"But the gap is huge now between us and them, and the gap on the pitch is huge as well."

Levein did not answer directly when asked if he regretted his post-match comments from January.

"Listen, Hibs played exactly how I expected them to play," he said. "We just didn't do well enough in possession of the ball. Better than we have been doing recently, in the last third of the pitch when we had opportunities to play a composed pass, we ended up rushing things.

"At the other end we defended really well, John (Souttar) and Christophe (Berra) were excellent. We played man for man at times and they dealt with the threat, until those two throw-in situations, which is something that is really annoying." sbo222

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Real in pole position after Asensio winner at Bayern

sbobet Real coach Zinedine Zidane pulled a surprise before kick-off by leaving both Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema out of the starting line-up. Isco, who was replaced by Asensio at half-time, and Lucas Vazquez played either side of Cristiano Ronaldo, who had a subdued night up front in Munich. The Portuguese failed to add to his tally of 15 Champions League goals this season, being denied a second-half strike by an offside flag, which would have made it 3-1. James Rodriguez, who is on a two-year loan deal from Real, shone in Bayern's midfield and found plenty of cracks in the Madrid defence. However, this just was not Bayern's night.

Both Thomas Mueller and Robert Lewandowski went agonisingly close with a string of chances. The hosts suffered a blow with barely five minutes gone when Arjen Robben limped off to be replaced by Thiago Alcantara. Bayern changed their system with right-back Joshua Kimmich moving up to plug the space on the right wing, which sparked the opening goal.

When Bayern goalkeeper Sven Ulreich played the ball down the right flank, James released Kimmich with a perfectly-timed pass in the 28th minute. The Germany international raced clear and caught out Keylor Navas at his near post to stun Real. Bayern suffered their second early injury blow when Jerome Boateng was replaced by Niklas Suele on 34 minutes -- which is also bad news for Germany with the World Cup looming. sbobet

Real had a left-off when Ribery went one-on-one with Navas, but stumbled at the crucial moment. Then from nothing, Marcelo conjured the equaliser on 44 minutes. When Dani Carvajal headed the ball across the edge of the box, it landed at Marcelo's feet and was in Bayern's net milliseconds later after a fierce left-footed shot.

It was the Brazilian's third Champions League goal this season after also scoring in the knock-out rounds against Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus. Real escaped again when Navas failed to hold a Lewandowski header just before the half-time whistle and the ball bobbled away to safety. It shows how far Bale and Benzema have dropped out of Zidane's favour that Isco was replaced on the left wing by Asensio for the second half, but the move paid off. sbobet