Well am no laughin

If any of us had any lingering thoughts of a league title this year, this last week has nailed them stone dead, and thats the good news!

I was playing 5's last Tuesday after work as Hearts were heading up to Tannadice with a chance of reducing the deficit with celtic to 5 points - all be it for 24hrs only. It was on the way to the game of 5's that i started hearing the news - Graham Rix had walked into the Hearts changing room earlier in the day and stated "i am no longer in full control of this team"
I thought Vlad would have waited until the eve of the cup final before he instigated another needless crisis.

With 20-20 hindsight it is obvious that Vlad was going to pull another coup after his extravagance in the transfer window.
Here is my take on what might have gone down during that day - this is pure speculation ofcourse.......

With all these new players at his dosposal Vlad just can't help himself and grabs Rix for a quiet word in his shell like -

VLAD "Graham, we have all these great new players and that Neilson he is not that good really is he - i want you to replace him with Petras he is much better and more importantly he is not Scottish"

RIX "Mr Romanov Sir, there is no way i can contemplate that. This is a very important game and Robbie has been a fundemental part of our excellent back 4 all season. It would be a big mistake to replace him with Petras who is not match fit and in any case we have not really see what he can do yet."

VLAD "Oh come now Graham, surely you must see that we have brought in all these superior players and need to promote them to the first team at the earliest opportunity"

RIX "Mr Romanov Sir, even if that were the case, this is not that opportunity - we must stick with our proven back 4 which has the best defensive record in Scotland and one of the best in all of Europe"

VLAD getting a bit impatient with all this pesky banter "Mr Rix, let me try to explain, if you do not do as i request and rest young Mr Neilson you can again start to look for work in the lower reaches of English regional football" "Oh yes and before i forget you should also find a place in the team for our new boy Straceny - he's great"

RIX "GMMMMPHH"

Rix slopes off to the changing rooms to address the team, but does not give himself time to come up with a believable excuse for dropping Robbie Neilson, so has no option but to tell him the truth.

RIX "Robbie, sorry lad you are on the bench tonight, Petras you are in at right back. If you want an explanation don't blame me because - I am not in full control of the team !!!!! "

WEBSTER "Whit ? "

Webster storms off to have a conference with his agent who advices him to halt all contract negotiations
Back in the changing rooms

WEBSTER "Boss, i am not standing for this, i have just talked to my agent and have called off all contract negotiations. Romanaov has taken it too far he has f*&ked with us one too many times - are you even still gonna be here by tonight"

RIX "Hold on lad, i will have a word with Mr Romanov and let him know your position"

Rix on the phone to Vlad

RIX "Mr Romanov Sir, we have a situation, Andy Webster has found out about the Robbie Neilson situation and has called off all negotiations for his new contract"

VLAD "The wee sh*te, right thats it drop him as well. So which one of our wonderful new players can we bring in to replace Webster"

RIX "Erm no one Mr Romanov Sir - you did not buy another centre half, we will need to use young Christophe Berra"

VLAD "Christophe Berra eh, he does not sound very Scottish, i guess he is pretty good then eh - right get him on"


So we went up to Dundee Utd with 6 changes from the team that beat Aberdeen 3 - 0 in the cup 3 days earlier. I would not read too much into that given 3 of those changes were regulars coming back into the team from suspensions and illness ( political or otherwise ). The other 3 explained maybe by the nonsense i have stated above. The media was having a field day tho and six changes sounds like a crisis and worthy of more air time and column inches. Truth is we just plain played shite - if you tracked the season we do that about once every 6 or 8 games or something like that. Petras played awful and got hauled off probably for his own good, Neilson got his place back after an hour but Webster remained on the bench throughout. The rest of the new guys were annonomous and the regulars were below par.

Diagnosis - the team are traumatised after another self inflicted implosion.
Prognosis - haven't a bloody clue

So to Aberdeen back to Tynecastle after last weeks gubbing ( it is 7 years since they have won against Hearts in Edinburgh ).
Hearts started as if they intended to exorcise Tuesday against Dundee Utd by slaughtering the Dons in quick fashion. We were 1 - 0 up after only 7 or 8 minutes after a characteristic Skacel scamper down the left and cut back to the near post for Elliot to slot home. That is the 3rd front post slot home on the trot by Elliot and is fast becoming a trade mark Hearts goal - almost allways Skacel and Elliott or Hartley at the front post to dispatch all seems far too easy when we do it.
So as expected Hearts would now indulge in their customary - overwhlem the opposition until the games won strategy
But
No we just fell straight out of the game - don't think i have seen that at Tynecastle this season yet.
I said to a guy in the work during the week that if Hearts aren't 2 - 0 up at half time then i am worried and i was worried.
Of the new guys who played in this one -

Aguar Looked off the pace but may well be a player
Petras Played in front of the defence for suspended Brellier this time. Probably got on a bit better than on Tuesday but can't see why he would be favoured in front of any of the home players
Beslija You know what if you gave me £800,000 i would do that as well
Straceny Came on after the break and was taken off 20 minutes later, you could argue it was tactical but lets face it, there is not much you can say about that.

This game was a shambles in terms of the play and the tactics and the subs and everything else - too many changes brought instability and we are on a shoogly peg in any case. Right now it feels like a totally new team out there that definitely needs to bed itself in. On top of all that we have previously regular players Jankauskas and Bednar who will also be back in contention for places, mind you i don't think either of those will do any harm at the moment.

Lastly and by all means leastly ex Hibs/Dundee manager and pundit Jim Duffy is our new Director of Football. To be honest i have no idea what one of those guys does and i have no real problem with Jim apart from the fact that he is a failed manager in the tiny Scottish managerial pool. So the question is Why?
Current thought is that both Rix and Duffy are until the end of the season so i wouldn't read anything into this really.