Sportingo

I have started publishing some of these articles through a fairly new sports website -










They add photos and edit the articles a bit and just make them seem a bit more professional really.
Have a look at http://www.sportingo.com/football/scottish-premier/2,2
Think i may need to temper them a little tho so for the full Commentary/Rant stick around here.

Voting now complete

Voting is now complete for the OleOle.com competition, to send bloggers to the Club World Cup in December.
Unfortunately i did not win, however many thanks to all who took the time to vote for me and good luck to those who are going.

The folks at OleOle did mention that there may be other opportunities to send bloggers to future events so maybe i will have better luck there - a shot at the Champions League Final in Athens next year would be braw don't you think.
Knowing my luck tho i would probably get the UEFA cup final at Hampden between Celtic and Rangers next May... oh god i think i am going to be sick

cheers

Intuition V Algorithm

It has been a long, tedious week for Hearts supporters, after the defeat to The Evil Empire last Sunday.
Things were not exactly exploding all over the place like they had the week or so earlier, but they were trundling along in their now usual Tynecastle in Crisis strife and misdemeanor. This was mostly centred around the actual start date of new interim head coach - Riabovas.
It seemed that everyday this week in the press, he had a different start date, from the 1st of December for a 6 month trial to Tomorrow to never. Meanwhile Malofeev was offski to get his UEFA coaching certificates which he didn't need ( not for a while anyroads ).
Malofeev in charge has been a disaster really, regardless of his coaching/managerial capabilities - the fact that he can't speak a word of English has made his position nonsensical and just added to the Hearts headlining the panto season subplot of the last few weeks. Trackside advice, tactical changes and rants need to be translated to McGlynn and this week Stevie Frail before being shouted out across the pitch, woefully too late ( obviously ). A few pundits on the radio i think Billy Dodds in particular have actually come across as being really pretty angry about that?

After last weeks i game i was firmly of the belief that Hearts still had a way to go before we would turn the corner and things would start to get better. So why then was i just as adamantly of the opinion by Friday that Hearts would win one nil up in Inverness. Where was the evidence for that.

I passed this divination onto one of the blokes in the work, his response being 'crap it will be 1 - 1'.
Bloody hell, i think, he is just as adamant as me in his prediction.
So i inquired as to how he got to be so confident.
Turns out he has a system. He is a bit of a gambler, not big time but he knows his way round the bookies and a fixed odds coupon. He has a system based on the product of the number of goals for and against for each game coming up, this runs to the last 5 years. There is a factor added to this based on actuals which makes things more realistic. He can then simply input a game - in this case Inverness Caley Thistle V Hearts into his system and it will pop out the most likely scoreline based on the info and the system.
This came out with 1 - 1 hence his confidence in the scoreline.
So he asked me how i got to be so confident - 'I just feel it in ma water man'

There was a bit more to it than that but not much. Based mostly on a few factors that came through and came to mind during Friday.

Last week Pressley was on the bench, we all know that reading Hearts and predicting a teamsheet is next to impossible - but i thought in the last blog entry that given he was on the bench then maybe his punishment was almost over and he would be back in. So thats a plus that would lift the team.

Likewise i suspected, no basis for this other than it is quite sensible, that Hartley, Aguair and Brellier would again make up most of the midfield. Three games together and now it should start to fall into place again, so maybe we would not be so disjointed.

Vlad was back over and making noises that he was in concilliatory mood, he wanted to calm the stormy seas - meeting with supporters groups etc. Ivanauskas was also back and apparently ready to go back to work - Riabovas now no longer necessary?? Ivanauaskas was actually over for a court appearance for speeding, but i guess decided to kill two birds with one stone and thought he might as well manage Hearts for a week or two whilst he is here. No really this i thought was a good thing at least, for more upheaval it is a return to a known quantity.

So these things brought the idea into my head that against all the odds Hearts would actually turn up in Inverness on Saturday and be confident and upbeat and ready to take on the world and on their road to recovery and 2nd place.

Premature i think, and not because, what i say here is not true it might be, we didn't get beat!
Premature because it was Inverness up at Inverness - a flying Hearts team on the top of their game would and always does struggle up there. So why would i think this would be different, pretty simple really i just put my maroon specs on again.

Did not catch too much of the game, i watched the Scotland v Australia rugby match until we were getting hosed and gave up the ghost on them. Tuned into the coverage from http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/sportscotland/sportsound/
The Hearts team changed again looked much more like last years with a back 4 including Neilson, Pressley and Fyassas and Brellier, Aguair and Hartley were in the middle. So was that a good thing?
The game did not quite have 0 - 0 written all over it but it wasn't far a way from it.
Hearts could have won it, Hartley brought out a very good save low to the keepers right, near the end but ICT also had their chances and could have taken all three points. A defeat yesterday would have been a disaster for Hearts we would surely have plunged deeper into the mealstrom so getting away from Inverness with a point was not so bad really, even if it does mean we lose ground on Rangers and Aberdeen.

There is a crucial fixture list coming up over the next few weeks leading up to the visit of the stinky Hibees on Boxing day, we have
ST Mirren Away
Motherwell Home
Aberdeen Home
Dundee Utd Away
Hibs Home

Right now it sounds like nonsense but ( last year it would have tripped off my tongue ) if we can somehow pull out a run of results from these games running up to Xmas our season can be turned round and saved.

It is time now for the players to once again come to the fore, starting in Paisley next week, we need a performance and we need a win.
So

HOOO ON THE JAMBOS

I guess i need to conceed that method and algorithm have won out over intuition this time round.

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Nearly Brilliant

After Currie Stars fantastic result last week there was much optimism for the game this Sunday Morning.
Cold and breezy Scottish weather has decided to miss autumn and go straight to winter, so it was great to see the coffee shop open in the Star's pavillion.

The game was even across the board and very exciting too with the young lads on both sides putting everything into the game and getting lots out of it, it was 3 - 3 with 10 minutes to go.
I overheard the coach saying, see just a few weeks ago this side ( Edinburgh City Tens ) would have steamrolled over us. I couldn't agree more, they have come on a huge amount over the past month or two.

That was the death knell for Currie though, they did get steam rolled in the last ten and lost 5 goals, a real shame for the lads. Still on the up side, the coach was right and a few weeks ago it would have been the whole of the second half that was lost not just the last ten.

So keep the heads up, it was nearly brilliant.

Jocular Backwater

THIS IS A GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A JOCULAR BACKWATER. THERE IS NO ENTERTAINMENT HERE, NO FUN AND NO JOKES. JUST DEPRESSION AND DESPERATION.

Just in case you were wondering, there will be no warped entertainment to be had from this blog entry. Those times are long gone along with any interest Heart of Midlothian Football Club may have had in this seasons league.

As i sat in the stand yesterday watching two desperately poor and just plain desperate teams try desperately to 'do anything but get beat' the thought struck me that last year watching Hearts it was a mad tumultous roller coaster ride, with as many peaks as there were troughs, the cascade between the two being sickeningly rapid at times. This year alas the ride is only down and worse i can't even see the bottom yet.
Football teams struggle at times! it happens and it is clear that you have to hit the bottom before you can start to climb out of it and it is amazing that in those troubled times all supporters need is to know when they have hit the bottom. The merest sliver of hope, one possitive act or a decent performance is all that is needed and the mood can switch again to one of optimism and expectation.
Hearts have not yet hit the bottom of their trough, i hate to say it but i think we have a way to go yet.
More depression i am afraid.
The world has turned, there is a lot of disquiet, bucket loads of disgruntled Jambos, we are not happy. I have heard and read and blogged my thoughts on the mayhem at Tynecastle. Our owner Vladimir Romanov seems hell bent on destroying any good work he may have done over the last couple of years or so and the first of the 'sack the board' banners was seen inside the ground yesterday.
Vlad's other team Kaunas have now won their league in Lithuania and behold we get ... their coach Riabovas to take over (interim again) from ( also ex coach of Kaunas ) Ivanauskas.
This betrays the often mooted idea that Vlad is a madman who has no idea what he is doing. Vlad knows exactly what he is doing and so do I - Kaunas don't need Riabovas for a few weeks so Hearts get him, if this works and we somehow manage to pull ourselves together, Riabovas will stay and Ivanauskas will get his old job back at Kaunas. If it doesn't work Riabovas will go back to Eastern Europe. Whether Ivanauskas comes back to Hearts is a different matter.
This is a tactic left open to Romanov a tactic he has thought about and employed. It is one of the very few left to him since he has painted himself into a ridiculous corner where he and our beloved team have no credibility whatsoever in a football context. What happens if Riabovas doesn't work, lets face it this is a distinct possibility. I am not even sure any of us can determine what Vlad would accept as 'working'. Where does Vlad go then, there is not a coach or manager on the planet that would give Hearts a second look, they would run a mile. So all that is left to Vlad is his cronies from Russia and Lithuania and they are patently not up to the task and in any case he must be running out of gimps by now.
This led me to me to a previously unthought fear that has now planted itself firmly in my head, this has mortally shaken my previously solid belief that Vlad was good for us even if it is mental and painful at times.
How many young guys - 15,16,17 with talent and a choice of teams to go with, how many of those guys would choose to risk their precious future at Riccarton. All they would see amongst the turmoil is a bunch of big scarey Russians who don't speak English and have a tendency for management by fear. Could this lead to a generation(s) of squads coming through from Riccarton with no young talent from anywhere west of the Volga. That may be a bit exagerated but it scared me thats for sure.

The Pressley saga continued this week with more stuttering news and posturing on all sides. I just wish it would conclude now, we are all too bruised and battered to keep on with it all.

Pressley was on the bench on Sunday and hartley had the captains armband on. What can we read into that, i read
Pressley is being punished but will not receive much more punishment. So on the bench rather than in the stand and Hartley must be up with the script or else i don't think he would have accepted the captaincy and would himself probably have been on the bench.

It has come to the point where the press are styarting again to mention talk of consortiums and takeovers. How does this one work, Vlad bought Hearts for the princely sum of around £1.2m or thereabouts so how come the first number mooted to oust Vlad is £35M. Now he is fantastic but i don't think Craig Gordon is worth £33.8m.

The Game
I have always, without exception always, for as long as i can remember, always had a deep hatred of all things Rangers. Don't get me wrong i can't abide the other half of the gruesome twosome either. Rangers just pip it tho for me as the team i most like to beat/most hate to get beat by. Maybe it goes back to the Graeme Souness mid eighties superiority complex they built into themselves based on bringing in a pile of English hard men. I don't care i just hate them.
So suitably nervous about the occassion i sat through the first half dirge both teams offered up.
Rangers are under loads of pressure too, their French manager Paul leGuen has not had the best of starts and doesn't seem to know what to do about it. Another indication that winning in the SPL is not as easy as it may first appear. The Sun has an image of a guillotine hanging over his head, as a sack-o-meter. It goes up and down dependant upon the Rangers result at the weekend. If they had done the same with the Hearts coach it would ofcourse be Russian Roulette and the gun would have 5 bullets.
Don't think there was anything in the game, both teams are bereft of cohesion so the football was poor at best and at times desperate. Hearts were possibly marginally hungrier but Rangers had a bit more quality into the box.
The Hearts support has banged on for ages now that we don't play our best team and all the changes have had an adverse effect on the play. I used to and not that long ago either, i used to be able to take the team that was picked and then dissect it and come up with the correct team for the day. I can't do that anymore it is now so broken that nobody knows what the first team is anymore. Quality into the box has been a problem all season but believe me Barasa is not the answer to that and wallace is lost in his current role of left midfield/wingback.
We did however play with Hartley, Brellier and Aguair in midfield - we can't complain about that we have been calling for it for weeks, so why doesn't it work?
We played with a back 3 again of Berra, Zaliukas and Tall, i guess at least Zaliukas doesn't look quite so much like me playing football when he is at the back.
Velicka and Mole up front, why are we persisting with Mole and where are all the other 38 strikers we have are they all injured?
Which reminds me do Hearts have a medical staff?
A couple of efforts from both sides in the first half but 0 - 0 was as good as it deserved.

The second half was a bit better but i still thought it was poor stuff, Miko came on for Mole and got pelters from the crowd. I had to feel a bit sorry for him he has become the butt for a lot of our frustrations, he did not help himself with a comical effort at a cross which skewed way up in the air and in entirely the wrong direction. But for the most part everytime the ball canme his way the rest of the team switched off so what the hell was he to do.
We did have one chance, Velicka got through on goal on the right, shot low and hard but McGregor got down well to save. At the other end Gordon made 2 or 3 good saves to keep Hearts in the game.
I never felt comfortable and there was an air of innevitability about Rangers goal, a nowhere ball caught between midfield and defence was not cleared by Hearts and the ball broke out to Novo. He was not closed down and got his shot in from 30 or so yards, low into the corner of the net.
My immediate reaction was to blame Gordon's positioning. This to me looked exactly like the goal Celtic scored against us at Parkhead to win the league last year. He is the bestkeeper in the country by a mile but he can still get it wrong. As it turned out i discovered today there was a deflection and he had no chance. That'll be me clamped then.
We don't have enough in the tank to recover from such set backs so we sloped to the defeat rather than fought to the death to get the point back.

The Hearts support were guilty of booing Miko, Zaliukas and Barasa, this led one of our coaches to claim that the Hearts support was racist against the Lithuanians. Naw man we are crappist against crap players. If this joker thinks he can win over the support with that sort of nonsense he is sadly mistaken.

Rubberneckin

Today is the day after the latest episode in the continuing unravelling of Heart of Midlothian Football club.
At the end of last season i remember reading a pile of comments on various sites from, mostly jealous Hibee fans, they would say something like - Just wait til next season where it will all unravel and you will be left homeless and devoid of any hope, after that mental Vlad has torn the Hearts out of your team then F&*ked Off, Ha ha ha ha BELIEVE.
Never knew where those eejits were coming from or why other than just the jealousy factor of Hearts doing not bad considering.
Well now i am not so sure, maybe they had a point.

It goes a bit like this, and you understand this is purely my take on the situation from my limited vantage point.
That statement two weeks ago from Pressley, i said at the time - it read like an abdication of his Captaincy. And so it turns out.
Another head coach ( interim ( aren't they all )) is appointed and Pressley blows again, i think he may well have just gone off on one, a step too far ( who could blame him really but the statement he made was the killer for me, his days were always numbered after that ). Apparently the management team at Tynecastle attempted to orchestrate a vote of no confidence in their captain by the players. This sounds all too much like a coup it is like some great communist plot to overthrow the aristocracy. You just couldn't write it.
Elvis gets wind of this and walks stating that he is not mentally able to play tonight.
Hartley was asked to captain the team and when he refused was dropped, then Neilson was asked to captain the team and when he refused he was dropped too. Then Gordon was asked if he would captain the team, when he refused he was dr.. no he wasn't Stevie Banks was injured so we only had 3rd choice keeper so Gordon wasn't dropped.
Finally Berra accepted the captaincy for the night.
It is all just too sad for words really, to watch this great institution parade its dirty washing so puclicly it hurts us deeply. Like an episode of Jerry f'n Springer we look like a bunch of inbreds screaming and bawling like a bunch of uneducated morons.
I fear for Pressley at Hearts, i fear his time may be up but all that really bothers me about that is that his end is not as it should be, he should waltz into retirement or player coaching role after a glorious Hearts career with his head well and truly held high, marked down as one of the truly great captains of this team. No matter how much bloody money or power Romanov thinks he has got he has absolutely no right whatsoever to deny Elvis this privilege. That said the statement made by the big man was just enough rope that he handed straight to himself.

New coach from, you guessed it Kaunas, their season is over, they have another league title and don't need a coach for a couple of months so we get him. Romanov must have worked it out that league titles in Lithuania are not the same thing as league titles in Scotland. No disrespect and come on lets not play down our downtrodden game again, it is a sight more difficult to negotiate a challenge over here than it is over there. This merry-go-round or Lithuanian's is not going to do the job. You could take them all back bar Chesny and Velicka and have almost any bog standard Scottish manager and the team would improve overnight.

After the initial 20 minutes of the Falkirk v Hearts game which i watched in the Railway in Juniper Green, Falkirk started to play footbal around us. The thought crossed my mind that i didn't really expect to see any football from Hearts, instead it was like rubbernecking a crash on the opposite side of the bypass, it all seemed to go in slow motion you knew you shouldn't but you just couldn't help watching with morbid fascination. By this morning i decided that in Hearts we are actually witnessing a gargantuan train wreck, it hasn't even happened yet but the rails are beginning to buckle under our wheels and the carraiges are beginning to rear up in the air.

Said it before but it just makes no sense, If for whatever politics you feel the need to drop 2 of your back 4 then for all footballing gods you must retain the other two. So Tall and Goncalves were nowhere to be seen either, the back 4 then was,
Wallace, Berra, Zaliukas, Karipidis
The midfield without Hartley, had at least a couple of midfielders Brellier and Aguair, Brellier ( never thought he would ever play for Hearts again ) looked pretty much off the pace from start to finish.
Hearts actually started the game OK, if totally disjointed allows that. We had a couple of decent efforts in the first 20 minutes and could easily have been 2 up. Falkirk owned the last half of the first period tho. Did not really do much. That Stokes bloke looked for too much like he was thinking 'I am really only here on loan you know, actually i play for The Arsenal' some decent touches but mostly he just got frustrated and lashed out a bit.
Half time came and it is 0 - 0
Hearts what the hell can you say about us, the one thing we most definitely are not is a football team, just a bunch of players who happen to get paid by the same club. This shows so much in our game. No one knows where anyone else is, or has any idea what is expected of them, we play the game far to far away from each other and no one is making any runs and oh it is just crap.
This disjointed aberration continued in the second half but at least we were fighting, we were winning every 50 50, got to put this down to the much maligned Baresa and Brellier and the back 4 and Miko ( had not a bad game considering ). One split second of space for Aguair to find Velicka, he collected still outside the box and took it early, keeper should have got it but hey, you gotta take that.
From the minute we scored we dropped ten yards and handed the game to Falkirk, aaarrggh
Mole did have a chance as he was clean through just to hit straight at the keeper, pretty shoddy and he should be left out of things for a while. Reminds me of the mental decision to loan out Callum Elliott ???
It was innevitable really that Falkirk would equalise, a well worked carving of the Hearts defence allowed Latapy to stroke the ball low into the corner.

1 - 1 a fair reflection on the proceedings.
Falkirk could have won it right at the death, but fortunately for us we managed to scramble away.

Must take umbridge at the Setanta commentary, it was so clear that Hearts could do no right and Falkirk could do no wrong. There was good and bad on both sides but no real balance there. The best example being a wee knock in the back of Latapy ( a foul for sure ) but the wee man flings himself down for a blatant dive not a word from the commentary. If that had been one of the Lithuanians they would have been all over it as more evidence of the cancer Heart of Midlothian Football Club have allowed into our beautiful game.. give it up for gods sake.
Everyone knows that the media attack a wounded animal like a bunch of hyenas but it really is going too far, it really is not helping the situation.

Lastly, i took note of the body language etc of Hartley / Neilson on the bench, they did not look in the least bit perturbed to me. No idea what to make of that but i expected soor pusses.

Lastly ( again ) Malofeev, attacks the 4th official and gets sent off and apparently takes it out on the changing room furniture - working for Vlad sure is a stressful gig.

Star goes supernova

It has been a few weeks since there has been a Currie Star boys game and it has been even longer since there has been a victory for them.

Today the lads to our total suprise went supernova on us and against their nearest rivals too Currie Boys Club.
The Star were 6 - 1 up by half time, took their foot off the gas a bit in the second half, lost concentration here and there, but still ran out very worthy of their 7 - 4 scoreline.

Fantastic lads you played brilliantly today.
The fifth goal especially was an absolute beauty in anybodies book - a sweeping move, one touch all the way from defence through midfield and up to the striker who put it away with clinical precision - best goal i have seen all season at any game i have been to.

There were times in the game today where they clicked as a team and really started to look the part i was chuffed to bits to see it. More, beneath that higher plain of football excellence there was a real steal and determination from the lads, they tracked back and the tackles went in when it mattered and Currie Star won the vast majority of 50 - 50 balls.

Hearts could do with picking up a few tips from the young lads today, they might start to look like a team again if they can adopt some of the team work and determination showed by the Currie Star 10 year olds this morning.


HOOO ON THE STAR

Low

Can't write too much about this one as it was all just too depressing.

I have a bee in my bonnet, i can't be doing with that thing where people just can't accept that the oppossition were somehow better than your team. You know the sort, they will allways say "we were shite" could never bring themselves to just admit that "you know what you lot were pretty good"
Just too hard for them to do.
I hate that crap.

So i am not happy about it, far from it i am gutted but lets face it Hibs were streets ahead, leagues ahead of Hearts at Easter Road on Wednesday night. Even the beers and whisky before the game couldn't cloud the chasm between the teams in front of my eyes.
After a decent show at Celtic Park i was pretty upbeat about the game, but oh my god what a disaster.
I have heard stats like 82% possession to Hibs is that right? My god that is probably a record for 2 teams in the same league playing each other.

Hearts lined up with a what is worryingly, looking like, Malofeev's favoured formation, with 3 centre backs and two wide of them too, just one up front.
Robbie Neilson was left to plough a right back/midfield furrow and Goncalves the same on the left. It just didn't work and after an initial 5 minutes where we looked OK Hibs kicked into gear like a well oiled machine the complete antithesis to Hearts - They all knew where each other was, they all worked for each other and knew what to expect. We on the other hand had no idea what we were about. The number of times a Hearts player would fight for a ball and be left stranded with nobody near him or even interested in the trouble he was in was a disgrace. Every time - there was a pack of hungry Hibees bearing down on them.

The only thing you could label against Hibs was that they did not score 3 or 4, there seemed to be a few balls flying across the goals in the second half, any of which looked as tho it could have crept in. Hearts on the other hand did not have a 'get this' did not have a single shot at goal!! The worst keeper in the history of terrible keepers did not even have a single save to make.

We play what will be a very tough game against Falkirk on the Setanta game next Monday night.
I wish i knew the answer, but i haven't a clue maybe a bit of...

Play the same formation as we did against Celtic 4-3-3
Or at least play 4-4-2
Play Brellier or Aguair ( Aguair was terrible on Wednesday mind you )
Play someone who will sit on top of Latapy
Do not play Zaliukas
Play Football for christ sake play Football

Hibs v Killie final in the diddy cup with Killie taking it 2 - 1

The magnanimity can't go on for ever!

String of garlic and a silver bullet

Well i for one am just glad we put in a bit of a show.

It's a measure of how much we have fallen since this time last year, how much our expectations have diminished and sloped back to where they came from, remember...

BELIEVE

The only time i see that these days is from those truly sad Hibees who for some reason need to comment on articles about Hearts in the Scotsman. Dripping with sarcasm, these comments are always neanderthal, mostly spelled kurectly mostly? and always always sad. Who are these people what is their purpose and is removal from the gene pool an option. This has been affecting me for a few weeks now, i log on to the Scotsman at lunchtime say, to pick up on the latest nonsense from Count Vladula and the rest of his Eastern European monsters. As an aside i am reading a book just now - The Historian it's a Dracula novel of sorts with a particularly heavy bent towards the history of the legend.
There are very strong links between :-
Dracula & Vlad the Impalor and some great battle with an evil empire ??
In the case of the book it's the evil Ottoman empire ( at least they brought us big boxes to keep your towels in ) but this can easily be replaced with Old Firm, SFA, Weegie Media whichever suits at the time.
Anyroads i have found myself spending 2 minutes skimming the article for a snippet of news then spending the next 20 pouring over the debates as they fly between the good old Jambo readers and their Hibee nemeses. Pathetic really where can i get my gene pool removal registration form. On the other hand, the articles are 99% garbage so why bother, they are nearly always full to bursting with anything that makes the Hearts set up even in the slightest bit unhinged. Which it is, truly unhinged but for christ sake WE KNOW!

Hearts are a victim of media hyper sensitivity.. aw shutup, if anyone in the media ever read this they would probably release a 12 page special in the Daily Rangers about the level of incomprehensible ranting their support has stumbled down to.
Now theres a thing Rangers, eh eh - them and the Hibs goalie are the only thing that are making this season bearable.

No one at Tynecastle has believed for quite a while now. I'll tell you what i do believe tho i believe that Hearts will go to Easter Road on wednesday night and win the game.
Do You ?

Now Saturday's game, on the run up i feared the worst. I just couldn't see where Hearts would find the mental strength to cope with a visit to Parkhead. It is true that it almost all depends on the team that gets picked and i have to say i was both mildly surprised with what transpired, confused as usual but on the whole i was not distraught.
Pressley was out due to a stomach virus, dahn dahn dahn, this was not lost on the radio pundits who continued to speculate on his future at the club after last weeks outburst - the medical staff should investigate Elvis's neck for any tell tale, twin puncture wounds. Mind you maybe thats how Miko keeps getting his game, he has been fully converted to the ranks of the undead. And Chesny lets face it if anyone looks like a vampire who needs a pint of '0' negative it's him.
The back 4 then were Goncalves, Berra, Tall, Neilson this is the back 4 of the future for Hearts. The loss of Pressley was pretty bad but that 4 was the best we could do to make up for it, so good start on the mental team choice stakes.
Some debate then with the formation - was it a 4-3-3 or was it a 4-5-1.
There was Hartley, Aguair, and Zaliukas in the middle with Miko and Chesny our two wide blood suckers making up the front 3 or the middle 5. Velicka as the striker.
This was OK because although the team had the much maligned Miko and Zaliukas it also had Aguair in the middle. Really doesn't matter to me, in a modern team in this day and age it's 5 in midfield when they have the ball and 3 in attack when we do. Not convinced either Miko or Chesny have got what it takes, the bit that really gets to me and both are as much to blame as the other, their final ball has a 5% chance of being the right ball - not good enough.
Velicka 5 goals in 4 games, what can you say, he has become our #1 striker and no questions asked. A Velicka-Panilla partnership may just be something worth waiting for.

Celtic were coming off a 3 - 0 gubbing in Lisbon against Benfica, the team they had beat by the same margin a fortnight earlier. They were not only beaten tho they were truly hounded out of Portugal a very poor performance. So maybe Hearts had a slight edge, not having played midweek and all. Never really felt it would be like that. As it turned out it was quie a bit like that.
Celtic though, in the last three SPL games have gone a goal behind and gone on to win the game, the sign of the championship winning team for sure. No one will catch them in the lang haul but i think it may just get a little more exciting before the shouting starts. A lot down to Rangers really they really do need to show up and start beating celtic too. And if those narrow wins start to turn into narrow draws they may just get pulled back in - so come all .. Hibs, Aberdeen, Killie and everyone else, we all need to take points of Celtic, all of us.
In those games Celtic have not started playing until they go a goal behind, it generally only takes them 20 minutes to turn they game once they do, mind you.
So i was pleased that Hearts squandered a few guilt edged chances before finally opening the scoring in 72 minutes.
As was the way of things in this game, it was very much an 'up for it' Hearts team that dispossessed Celtic in midfield and quickly countered, Velicka picked the ball up, still 40 odd yards out, he was allowed to run all the way to the edge of the box unchallenged ( a good run mind you ) and equally unhindered to dispatch his shot low into the far corner. An excellent goal from Hearts point of view but if i was a Celtic fan i would have been tearing my hair out. Shocking defence.
72 minutes gone and Hearts were 1 up and the title race was back on by a thread and the ignamony of PaddyPower paying out on the title bets in November was held off.
Just before the goal went in i was getting the impression that Hearts were tiring, we had put masses into the game and were pretty much shot. A lot has been said about the tactics of sitting back against Celtic after the goal went in but under the circumstances i am not sure what else we could have done.
The removal of Aguair for Fyassas seems once again mental, just can't see why Brellier was not the correct choice, confused again.
Not sure if it really mattered in the end but it is just one more indication of our self destructive tendancies.
Celtic eqaulised with 4 minutes to go, a corner from Nakamura which Jarosik fought hard to get his head to, just plain beat Tall for strength and aggression.
With 4 minutes of injury time more or less up... another whinge
There has been a lot of debate about the extra extra time that Celtic got to net the winner and Gordon has taken pelters from Celtic fans for his obvious time wasting - people has nobody worked this out yet - every keeper in the world wastes time when the clock is running down and a result is imminent, every keeper everywhere. I think that sometimes the old firm do get more than their fair share of time when it counts but in this case half of the injury time was itself taken up with an injury.
Anyroads a goalmouth scrap, and a shot comes in that Gordon saves and the ball loops into the air. Gordon stretches his arms out to collect the ball but it bounces of his wrists and into the net - an absolute Hibee of a goalkeeping error and the game is lost

Still, Hibs on Wednesday and if we play with the same application and more importantly something like the same team/formation we can beat them and things won't look so bad again.

Prediction - 2 - 2 Hearts win 6 - 4 on penalties

so

HOOOO On The Jambos