Kilmarnock vs Hearts Predictions

Hearts face an away trip in Ayrshire as they are hosted by Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. Can the Jambos grab yet another win? Read on for all our Scottish Premiership predictions and betting tips.

A 5^th-placed Kilmarnock side come into this game on the back of a trio of unwanted results which include defeats to Motherwell and Aberdeen as well as a draw with Hamilton just before the international break.

Those couple of defeats were away from home, whilst Killie have thrived more often when playing at Rugby Park. Angelo Alessio’s side has the 3^rd best home record in the league, winning 12 points from 7 games and bested by Celtic & Rangers.

Kilmarnock has failed to score in just 29% of ties at home whilst also keeping a clean sheet in 57% of them. However, scoring isn’t their forte as made evident by their measly 1.14 goals on average, but the flip side is that have only conceded 0.71 goals.

Hearts interim manager Austin MacPhee faces his first away trip after successfully guiding his side to a 5-2 win over St Mirren at Tynecastle following their league cup semi-final exit and kick-starting the Jambos’ season.

It’s hard to tell whether or not the Edinburgh club will continue with the high-scoring trend from MacPhee’s first league game, as their average tally away from home currently rests at 0.83 goals, with the defence conceding an average of 1.33 on their travels. Moreover, the Jambos have only scored in 50% of away trips and failing to keep a clean sheet in 67% of those ties.

Only 43% of Kilmarnock’s home games this season have seen over 2.5 goals, meaning that 4 of their 7 matches at Rugby Park have seen 2 goals or less. Moreover, Killie are undefeated in their last 6 home ties, losing once to Rangers back in August. Hearts have only been able to pick up 5 points from their 6 away games this season, suffering a trio of defeats to Aberdeen, Celtic and St Johnstone and scoring points over city rivals Hibs, St Mirren and Livingston, with 50% of those games seeing over 2.5 goals.

We believe that this low-scoring trend will continue for this game and we’re going to back the hosts to win here as they’ve won 3 of their last 6 home ties and Hearts have lost 50% of their previous 6 fixtures on the road, with a final score of 1-0 to Killie.