Newly promoted Valletta con‐ tinued to impress yesterday as they defeated Hibernians with a Thaylor Aldama first half goal.

The Citizens thus remain the only unbeaten side in the top flight as they are keepeing the pace with league leaders Flori‐ ana, who on their part dfeated Birkirkara in the late match.

Floriana and Valletta have now opened a good gap with the rest of the teams in the Premier League, with only Hamrun in a good position to challenge for a place in the top two places.

For Hibernians this was a setback as they now have to fight hard for a place in the top six at the end of the regular phase of the opening round.

Valletta deserved their victory yesterday against a solid Hiber‐ nians side.

However when Valletta took the lead in the final minutes of the first half, Hibernians had lit‐ tle or nothing to show as their reaction was rather weak and Valletta controlled with relative ease.

The Citizens had a couple of good scoring opportunities to score a second goal and seal the issue but failed to do so and the match remained in the balanec till the final whistle.

From the start Valletta took the upper hand and came close to an opener after only nine minutes play when their striker Yuri Messias was unlucky when his effort smashed against the crossbar with Sacco beaten, and from the rebound the Hiberni‐ ans defence managed to scram‐ ble the ball to safety.

Hibernians had their first glimpse of goal on 26 minutes when froma freekick action, Charleston's header just missed the target.

Seven minutes from the break Valletta broke the deadlock, a goal that proved to be the winner.

The Hibernians goalkeeper Hugo Sacco certainly was not at his best in this action as he mist‐ imed his sortie, with the ex Hi‐ bernians player Thaylor Aldama taking full advantage, lobbing the ball over the same Sacco be‐ fore putting at the back of the net to the delight of the ever nu‐ merous Valletta followers.

Minutes later Valletta should have easily doubled the score when Thaylor Aldama did all the running on the right but then failed to score from an ideal po‐ sition practically missing a sit‐ ter.

In the second half much more was expected from Branko Nisevic's side, but the Paolites never gave the impression they could save the match.

Valletta defender Savic was outstanding having a five star performance that helped the Cit‐ izens grab another three pre‐ cious points to keep their hopes of a top six finish alive.

Photo: Domenic Aquilina