Arse !

If we get to the end of this season without shooting ourselves in the foot again it will be because we have run out of bullets.
Suicidal team choice the chosen method this time, none of the volcanic manager sacking or anything so extreme - just mental team selection.
The Romanov's, that was the name of the old Russian royal family, maybe thats where this madness comes from, maybe it is some deep seated superiority complex steeped in arrogance - might be. Actually i don't really believe the Romanov's pick the team conspiracy theories that much apart from the Andy Wester situation, looks like he is out in the cold never to return and we have seen the last of him in a Hearts strip - bit of a travesty. I can understand Lee Wallace at left back. For all that we love Fyassas and his magicness he just doesn't have the legs to face Sproule, so without Goncalves, it was not a bad shout to have Wallace in there. But! Can't understand why Fyassas was not on the bench. More tho with Pressley injured the only half way sensible thing to do with the back four was to make it as settled as possible which must have meant bringing Webster back in instead of Ibrahim Tall at least then 2 of the four would have been the tried and tested combination that has been so miserly all season.
No argument with Skacel on the bench, he is still not performing, top scorer he may still be but he has been off the boil for ages. The press are trying their damnest to make him seem like a prema-donna, stir up trouble where there really is none, anything to make Tynecastle look like a circus ( like we need help with that ). I saw it in his performance last week, low on confidence, trying too hard, shooting just off target when he could take another yard and slam it home, just playing the wrong ball at the wrong time. He could still shine again and make a big difference this season but it is in the balance really and there is no way we should rely on him.
No idea about Jankauskas being dropped, he is one of the Romanov boys, his ommission may well be down to the rotation theory.
I guess the other big one for the conspiracy theorists is Brellier out Aguair in, Brellier has been brilliant all year but it is well known that Romanov doesn't rate him at all. If that were all there was and Romanov was picking the team then why was Brellier on the bench at all? Jankauskas and Webster were in the stand after all. It's a tough call actually because Aguair is pretty good, works well in there with Hartley. Think i would like to see Brellier back for the Celtic game tho - just a bit more metal.
The upshot of all this was - i was totally confused by the team selection for the game on Saturday and i can only think of one thing - of the games left it was viewed by the people that pick the team, that the game at Easter Road was going to be the easy one, so we could rest some and continue to alienate others - If that is the case then these guys have learned nothing about Scottish football. Do you think if we had scraped through the semi 2 - 1 the selection would have been different? Christ this game was huge and Hibs were never going to do us any favours and we went into it looking like a bunch of amateurs.

The game aside there were many points to note, reprise of the now classic 'OH THE HIBEES ARE GAY', also turned to the tune of Born to Run. This was high quality entertainment with the Hibees joining in with specific references to Paul Hartleys love of Judy Garland movies. Try as they might tho they will just have to accept that we got there first and they will have to conceed that ofcourse they are all GAY. At the end of the game with the Hibees obviously delighted with things the DJ at Easter Road played Electric Six - Gay Bar. Got to hand it to them thats a pretty damn good response. All in all this banter when compared to the vitriol that would have been swaging back and forth at the old firm game the next day, is in a different league entirely. I can see EUFA clamping down on all this homophobia tho, we will probably be docked 10 points from next season and made to set a section in the Roseburn Stand with pink seats.

So to the football.
Hearts were just bloody awful in the first 30 minutes, just plain rank. For all it seemed like Hibs were much much better they still didn't produce much, the goal aside. The new offside rules just seem to be causing more confusion and controversy every week. Simplest way to look at this one is if it had been last year it would have been offside - this year you could debate it for hours and still have no idea - the areas have just been greyed to the point where all the grey bits have met in the middle and it is just one huge grey bit.
I have no idea if he was offside or not, anyroads that wee shite Riordan scored ( hopefully for the last time against Hearts ).
As the half wore on Hearts gradually started to shift through a couple of gears but really we were rank in the extreme. A hopeful ball for Bednar to run onto tho caused more confusion in the Hibs defence than it should have as Bednar bore down alongside two Hibs defenders and the Hibs keeper. The ball broke Hibs way and they allowed it to go back to the keeper who immediately transported himself back to Hampden and gifted another goal to Hearts - oh for gods sake.
Half Time 1 - 1
The second half was better from Hearts, obviously bouyed by the mentalist Hibs keeper and the fact that we were miraculously in the game.
Hibs seemed to drop into themselves and lost what they had in midfield. So Hearts looked the better team in the grand tradition of 'a game of two halfs' - so it was with deep irony that in the end Hibs stole this one with a breakaway goal against the run of play.
Skacel had been brought on for Chesnauskis, weirdly since he had been doing much better than Mikoliunas ( who was also looking a bit likely to lose the plot ), no real effect tho. Hibs however brought on, top of the ned tree - Scott Brown and the new Morrocan striker whose debut was the semi final. Bezoulan or something like that, it was his loss of possession in midfield that allowed the breakaway for Hearts first goal in the semi and the whole party thing to kick off. They did make a difference and Bezoulan got his revenge, he enjoyed it so much he ran the length of the park to celebrate in front of the Hearts crowd - booked obviously. Later monkey faced Mowbray claimed that it might have been a cultural thing a French thing? Good grief.
Full Time Hibs 2 - Hearts 1

So the 5 point lead was there for the taking by Rangers, a chance to reduce to 2 and put 2nd place into their own hands. They couldn't take it tho they played out a dour 0 - 0 at Celtic park. So we shot ourselves in the foot again and have played our very last get out of jail free card - but i am pretty up beat about things. 2nd place is still in our own hands and i think that this game was our screw up for the last few games of the season.
Predicting 2 victories at Tynecastle, Celtic then Aberdeen for Hearts to remain 4 points ahead when we go to Ibrox at the end of the season. Celtic are showing signs of already being on the beach and Aberdeen's season could be all but over too when they come a week on wednesday and everyone will be playing for cup final places, and i promise i will keep taking the tablets.

Good game, Good game

Awright, bit under the weather so i will keep this one short.
There is no logic whatsoever that anyone can apply to the split, but this year in any case it is pretty bloody exciting.
The only team with nothing to play for are Celtic and thats because they had the league sewn up before it even happened.
Hearts on the other hand have loads to play for and each game is as big as the last.
It all boils down to, can we finish ahead of Rangers and take second place and the shot at playing in next seasons champions league.
Coming into the split Hearts are 3 points clear with a huge goal difference also, so effectively a 4 point advantage with 5 games to play.
Sounds great and it is great but two things spring to mind -
This time last year Rangers were 5 points behind Celtic with 4 games to go and still managed to sneak the title
We play them at Ibrox on the last game of the season

All sounds pretty damned exciting really and is making for a cracking end to the season with even when it is all over the cup final awaits.
So to the first of the 5 remaining games, Kilmarnock at Tynecastle.
Got to say i enjoyed this game as much as any all season i think. It wasn't the biggest or the best football or the most exciting or any of that stuff really but it was enthralling stuff.
I have a lot of time for kilmarnock, they have punched above their weight this year, Jim Jefferies has been touted for manager of the year for what he has managed to do there with the limited and diminishing resources at his disposal.
Hearts started well looking as fluent as we had the week before which was a big surprise since there were quite a few changes in the line-up. It is now accepted that since Rix has gone Hearts have now moved into a rotation system, where just about every position is up for grabs, for a few weeks anyway. It has a long way to run but for now it seems to be working.
A good few chances came to Hearts in the first half but seemed to tail off as the half wore on and it definitely fell into the category of "It is just not happening out there". Most notable a 25 yard strike by Skacel that went just wide and high, if anything on this performance the lay off Skacel has had has left him a bit down on confidence, he seemed try to hard and snatch at every shot - oh for a goal for Skacel oh for a goal fo Skacel against the Hibees on Saturday at Easter Road, could be the difference between his season petering out or storming to a glorious finish. Notable also was a run down the left and cut back to Jankauskis, his shot was saved but it came out to Bednar, he had an open goal but his effort went over.
Half time came at 0-0 over at Ibrox where Rangers were playing Aberdeen it was also 0-0, nail biting stuff.
The second half continued as the first with the chances for Hearts fewer and fewer, Killie were gaining in confidence and causing problems themselves.
It was always going to be a free kick, 25 yards out on the left side of the box, just perfect, curled into the top corner, keeper no chance. Just brilliant, Paul Hartley once again magic!
Cesnauskis came on for Miko who was pretty innefectual really and pretty much changed the game, his runs were straight at the Killie defence exactly what we were needing - one such run, with a nutmeg in the middle crossed to the back post, saved by the keeper came out to Berra who headed in Hearts 2 Killie 0 game over.
Meanwhile Rangers lost a lead to draw 1 - 1 with Aberdeen so Hearts are now 5 points clear, effectively 6 with the goal difference and 4 games to go. I guess you could say that Hearts can only blow it now but i have a feeling it will still go to the last game at Ibrox. Still i have no fear of going there at all, needing a draw or a win we could do it. Alot depends on this weekends games
Saturday Hibs v Hearts
Sunday Celtic v Rangers

What's going on here then

Ok, i have a question, it will take a while to formulate this question so read on.

Two games to cover since the fantastic demolition of Hibs, last Sunday. The cup final is tucked away in the back pocket so we can concentrate on the 2nd place and the shot at the champions league.
Whilst Hearts were having so much fun against the pathetic green fae Leith Rangers went up to Tannadice and won 4 - 1 to bring them to within three points of Hearts.
This meant that the game a Celtic Park last wednesday was double edged -
With a win Celtic would win the league on the earliest date in the history of the SPL. With the start we made and all the fuss that was made how could we have let this happen? - thats not my question but it is a bloody good one.
Rangers are now just 3 points behind us, we have a game in hand ofcourse but that game in hand is this one - away to Celtic who are just about to win the title.

I mentioned to a bloke in the work when asked what i thought about the game - i said, well i think there is a fair chance that Hearts could take something from the game but also i had a feeling that if Celtic got their noses in front - with the league in their grasp and Hearts may suffer a bit from Sundays exploits that - maybe Celtic could cut loose a bit and rack up a good few goals. Where the hell did that come from, i am ashamed of myself - the only time Hearts have been beaten by more than one goal this season was that aberration down at Easter Road in the wake of the Burley disaster, so why on earth should i think we would capitulate under Celtic - shocking.
Hearts were without Pressley who suffered a case of concussion during the semi final, and also Goncalves who suffered a mild case of de-capitation in the same game. Presley was missed immediately as zurawski knocked down for Hartson to strike a hopeful volley from 25 yards - Gordon was well out of possition but i think the miss of Pressley for the knock down was more telling. From that point the game changed - now answer me this, 17 points ahead at home to your closest challengers with a win needed for the title - would you go for it, would you put in a performance and give your faithfull fans a good reason to celebrate. Or would you turn in one of your most dour and dismal performances of the season. I thought Celtic were awful, two banks of four perpetually in their own half, they gave Hearts all the territory and all the possession and fought in their own third only. Mind you i think Hearts could still be there and not have equalised but that is not my point, aren't you supposed to entertain someone some of the time.
Hearts had the ball in the back of the net but Webster was offside.
Another Celtic supporter in the work tried to excuse the performance by bringing up last years final day disaster where they threw the league away with minutes to go - doesn't cut it for me, they were crap.
I thought, christ anyone can defend like that, we play Dunfermline at Tyney on Saturday and they could come and play exactly like Celtic - I really have no idea what i am on about do i.
Hearts seemed to command and control the game throughout this one, without really threatening too much they looked really pretty good.

Dunfermline turned up and the first thing of note was the reprise of 'Oh the Hibees are Ga..ay' oh how predictable, small minded and childish the Hearts support are, brilliant ain't it. The second thing of note was the first half, i haven't seen us play this well since either the start of the season or well for bloody years - it is true Dunfermline were awful but the fluidity and the movement of the Hearts team all over the park was fantastic i mean we were bloody brilliant. No Rudi Skacel, he has been on the wain for ages now and it is right he needs time off. No Webster either tho and that is not so understandable, mind you finding a place in your team for Goncalves is definitely a good thing. I think it was the midfield where it was really cooking tho Miko, Chesney, Hartley and Bruno Aguar were awsome really. Miko and Chesney would swap wings every couple of minutes leaving the Dunfermline defence chasing shadows ( actually they just sort of stood around looking dizzy ) - i guess there were a couple of times we were off balance when Fyassas would look up the left channel expecting to see Skacel but no one was there, but that is a very small gripe. I guess you could say that the goals we scored in the first half did not live up to the play we produced but thats just another small gripe. The goals were just too easy........
A long throw in from the right by Neilson, was met unchallenged on the half by Pospisil ( in for the injured Jankauskas ) and he slotted it home 1 - 0. Dunfermlines only tactic was damage limitation and at that they were rubbish.
A cross in from the right by Neilson was met unchallenged by Bednar who looped a header over the keeper, it took an age to come down but finally dropped in at the back post 2 - 0.
A short corner was cut back to Miko who slipped to the side 12 yards out and slotted the ball home 3 - 0
It was half an hour gone and the game was well and truly over and just far too easy.
The second half was a bit more of a snore really we were still in complete control and completely comfortable but had lost a bit of a cutting edge, it was more like a training session really - Fyassas had the ball on the right close to the touchline and the byline with two Dunfermline players covering - i swear he had half an hour to consider his options before he clipped the ball round the back of his right leg with his left to outfox the two of them - Fyassas is no spring chicken but he looked like he had to wind up his ankles before he could go for the ball he had knocked towards the box, he got there tho but his low cross was cut out. The rest of the Hearts front line ran up to him with high fives and congratulations - like i say, this was an exhibition match.
On came the two most expensive recruits in January - Makela for Pospisil and Beslija for Miko, still can't work out what Beslija is going to do for his 850,000 but Makela slotted away the corner very well for his goal, 4 - 0
Beslija seemed to offload the ball back the way every time he got it, maybe he needs to build a bit of confidence but on the whole it is good to see some of these guys settling down and getting fit and getting a game and making it better. I am beginning to get to the question i have.
Now i said earlier that Celtic were tripe and anyone even Dunfermline could defend like that, patently they couldn't so maybe Celtic's tripeness was down to Hearts just plain not allowing them to play. What if the last few months have been a self imposed mallaise that has fooled us all into believing that we really weren't that good. We would never play like this under Rix, it is like the shackles have been taken off and we can play football again. The only thing that carried Rix at all was the general decent quality of the players. All far too late now, but what if Rix had never happened? There are piles of other factors ofcourse but the last three games have seemed so much more like the start of the season, i have to wonder, what the hell did we do to ourselves?
Bednar wrapped it up for me in an interview in the Scotland on Sunday - "The last three games have been like the first 5 of the season" note, not the first 8 the first 5 and he is right we definitely dipped after those first fantastic games. Thats probably a lot of questions, too many.
It does fill me with hope for the run in, it goes

Hearts v Killie
Hibs v Hearts
Hearts v Celtic
Hearts v Aberdeen
Rangers v Hearts

So we go to Ibrox on the last game of the season and any slip between now and then could mean that 2nd place is up for grabs, even if it does, i would have no fear going to Ibrox if we play like we have over the past few games.

Tell All The Hibs You Know

It's 105 in a Row !!

Christ what a day! i am still buzzing, that was fantastic. From start to finish that was brilliant.
Really really could not have hoped or dreamed of a better semi-final against Hibs than the one we got.
It all started so quietly as well. Like i said in the last entry, after the dream i had my guts were upside down and i didn't feel any better as we turned up on Wheatfield to get on bus 20 at 8:30am on Sunday morning. Got to say that is a bloody ridiculous time to be heading to a football match but there you go.
Traffic was quiet and we found ourselves outside the west stand at Hampden at 10, with a good 2 hours to go before kick off and nought to do, it was cold as well. Immediately tho you could feel that this was a good day, there were already thousands of Hearts fans around and we were in good voice and good mood and already ready to party.

Got into the ground with an hour to go and got a bovril and sat down in our seats and started to wait, amazing how quickly that hour went, the Hearts end was already pretty full and the singing started soon enough. The excitement and the noise was rising by the minute as this long awaited game drew closer. The Hibs crowd low and a bit sad as it was, was trying also to drum up some enthusiasm for the game, to overcome the trepidation they must have felt. Then the genius moment that started the whole snowball that ultimately rolled over Hibs, a moment of pure comic genius. The DJ at Hampden or whatever you call the guy that decides what noise to blast out of the speakers, chose to put on The White Stripes - 7 Nation Army and the bass riff........... The Hearts support immediately jumped on it and blasted "All The Hibees are Ga..ay, All The Hibees are Ga..ay" and on and on continued this for a good ten minutes after the song finished, by this time all 22,000 of us blasting this ditty eastward across the stadium. I think you will agree that this is about as petty and childish as you can get - fantastic. I swear the Hearts support had beaten the muppets 4 - 0 before a ball was kicked, with no answer they shut right up and kept shut right up for the rest of the day.

There was a doubt over the fitness of both Pressley and Robbie Neilson before the game but both strolled out for their warm up along with Jose Goncalves in place of Fyassas. We all love Fyassas but we also know that he is not blessed with the fastest of legs so it was no real surprise that the switch had been made. Sproule was really the only threat Hibs had and that threat was only the fact that he could run really fast. Still he had played a big part in Hibs humiliations of Rangers this year so we were right to take note.

The game kicked off and Hearts were immediately on the attack down the left with a good ball to Skacel who turned well to lose his marker and hit the by line. The trademark low cross in from the left nearly paid off in the first minute. After that tho the game went scrappy and if anything Hibs were getting the better of things. They managed a couple of opening 20 yards out and had a couple of pops, i mentioned to Claire tho that it would take something special to beat Craig Gordon from there, we looked at each other and nodded like we knew what the hell we were talking about. I was nervous.

There were quite a few niggly fouls creeping into the game and most seemed to be going against Hearts and i was getting more nervous. I had concluded that the longer the game went without Hearts scoring the more chance Hibs would have, given Hearts now regular self destruction in the latter part of matches. Hibs managed once in the first half to get behind the Hearts defence, on the right and cut back for Sproule. Maybe things could have been different on Sunday and maybe this was the moment when fate played it's card. He really should have buried it but he weakly passed the ball into Gordon's arms - within a couple of minutes Hearts were 1 up and about to cut loose. Hibs had to bring in a new striker a young Moroccan bloke who's name is irrelevant, he seemed a bit overwhelmed tho as he lost possession and then had to foul Goncalves on the edge of the box. The resultant free kick was Beckham-esc and very well saved by the Hibs keeper. We should have known then that Hartley was in the mood.

The Moroccan striker again lost possession, this time in midfield and Hearts had a break, Hartley passed out to Jankauskis on the left, who made the yards into the box and passed back in for the trademark low cross from the left for Hartley to clip the ball into the far corner of the net. Hearts 1 Hibs already beat. The rest of the half continued scrappy at best and ended with Pressley taking a head knock at the end of the 45.

Half time was more of the same from the Hearts crowd with many questions being asked of the Hibs support's gardening orientation. Clearly delighted with the world at the moment i was still unconvinced and still very nervous.

Pressley did not come out for the second half, don't think i was too worried tho because Goncalves really looks the part and on came Fyassas to take up his usual left back berth as Goncalves moved inside with Webster. The second half was different from the first from the off as Hearts had moved up a gear, Hibs were looking tired by the 50th minute and were giving away free kicks around the box. Hartley had another effort again Bekham-esc, a slight deflection and another good save. A few moments later another free kick, this time a bit tighter angle on the left. Looked more like the kind you would cross to the back post as was understood by Hibs only putting one in the wall and the keeper moving to the centre of his goal. Hartley clipped the ball over the one man wall and into the goal at the near post, keeper flailing. Signal the collapse, well nearly, 2 - 0 up and ten minutes later i was worried. A clash between Goncalves and Craig Gordon leftn Goncalves knocked out and looking in a really bad way. Gordon got booked for time wasting when he was obviously trying to attract attention for Goncalves crumpled in a heap on the by line, ridiculous! Fyassas now had to move into the middle and Skacel moved to left back ( this is also what happened when Fyassas got sent off against Celtic in the new year game ) like i said i was worried. Hibs however couldn't really hurt us and even with Hearts weakened defence really didn't know how to break Hearts down. Sproule's lack of any real quality in the end boiled over in his frustration as he stamped on Mikoliunass's back after a touchline tussle. Miko made the most of it for sure but a red card was the only option. A few minutes later a speculative ball forward was chased down by Jankauskis ( Hibs defender gave up because he thought his keeper was getting it ) keeper made an arse of it and Jankauskis nipped the ball away from him. He seemed to take an age, he turned like an aircraft carrier with a spare weekend to maneuvre, but he got his body round the ball and stroked it into the net and the party started.

Hearts 3 Hibs 0 and already half way back along the M8

Nearing the end now and the party is in full swing and i am for the first time in the day no longer nervous or worried, instead i am jumping up and down and asking the few remaining Hibees about their sexual orientation. Another speculative ball over a collapsed Hibs defence allows Pospicil in, he has his shirt pulled and is brought down ( this was outside the box but was definitely a red card). Hibs down to 9 men and Hearts 3 up with a penalty and a few minutes to go and i am thinking... it just doesn't get any better than this, whatever this season has brought, the highs and the lows, it just can't get better than this. Hartley sinks the penalty and again for the second time this season against Hibs.......... Four nil we only won four nil.

Hit this link for a sample of the party, donated by a bloke in the work. He made a late decision to pretend to have a back injury so he could go to the game instead of play his hockey 1/4 final. He made the right decision, his team done a Hibee and got horsed 7 - 1

http://www.blakdreem.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/nananana.3gp

HOOOO ON THE JAMBOS

Ok lots to get through today.
The lack of match reports over the past few weeks has been down in part to some technical difficulties with my PC ( now sorted ). I must concede tho that the lack of match reports over the past few weeks has in part also been down to a depressing lack of any desire to write anything about Hearts. Right now I am pumped to the eye sockets with it all - Hibs tomorrow in the Semi-Final of the Scottish cup, so any recap of the last few weeks of madness and mayhem at Tynecastle will be flavoured by that fact. I will try to maintain some semblance of balance?

The technical difficulties, if you are in the least interested - this may come in useful. I tried to set up a VPN link from my machine in the house to my company network using their VPN software. This didn't work and only served to screw the network settings on my machine. At one point I managed to get the machine into a 2 minute reboot cycle. I just managed to get logged in and start the uninstaller for the VPN software before the machine rebooted itself. I think tho that maybe the uninstall wasn't the cleanest and it left my machines settings mixed up. Try as I might I couldn't get a newtork connection. Lots of messing around but to no avail. I was just about to use the sledge hammer approach and use the recovery disk I got with the PC taking it back to the state it was in when it left the shop, when I discovered something - XP has a thing called 'system restore' you can access it from Accessories -> system tools -> system restore. This looks like an incremental back up of your registry and other geeky bits n bobs. Anyroads I just took the machine back to the state it was in before the VPN software was installed and hey presto, the internet is back. This all took about 2 weeks of farting about tho so no match reports during that time, I will try to re-cap now.

There have been three games a manager and a DOF since the last report -

Inverness Caledonian Thistle 0 Hearts 0
An absolute dog of a game this one, winters last stand up in the bitter north, it was a howling gale and next to no football was getting played. The draw meant that Hearts dropped to 15 points behind Celtic and even the most mentalist of Jambo dreamers gave up any hope of catching Celtic this season. It's pretty obvious really but each of these away draws have been an individual nail in the coffin of our challenge, far too many of them for a team chasing a european place never mind a league title. I listened to this game on the radio - it really was depressing stuff maybe Hearts done some decent work in the first half but in the second we were non existant and were lucky to come away with anything at all. The fact that we did I guess is testament to our determination to cling to whatever we do have. There was a fair amount of punditry on Hearts side after this one tho, ICT are no pushovers for sure and it really was a howling gale so no football was possible but I just can't get past the fact that if it had been Celtic and probably lately Rangers up there in the same conditions they would somehow have conspired to squeeze all three points out of the fixture - who knows. ICT last week however went to Easter Road and gubbed them 2 - 0, excellent!

Hearts 1 Rangers 1
Loads of pressure on both clubs on the run up to this game, a real six pointer. Rangers come in to the game 6 points behind Hearts and knew that if they managed a win and reduced the defecit to 3 then the pressure would really be on the Jambo's and I think they would really smell blood and would ultimately reign us in during the split. Hearts on the other hand knew that if they could win they would almost certainly kill off the late Rangers challenge for 2nd place and more importantly a shot at the Champions League next year.
So I guess it was fated to be a draw.
Packed and noisy Tynecastle as you would expect for what at the time was the biggest game of the season for certainly Hearts.
Ferocious start by both teams going either way, it was obvious from the off that at least Rangers came to Tynecastle as a football team unlike the abberration that turned up the last time. It was 100 hundred miles an hour and hard to tell who if anyone was going to make an impression on the game. Out of nothing tho Cesnauskis, wide on the right about level with the half way line, done some excellent work to first bring the ball under control then to flip over the heads of two Rangers players to create the space for himself to scamper down the wing. A quick low cross and Jankauskis was there at the front post to hammer home 1 - 0 to the good guys. The rest of the first half was much the same although I can't really remember Gordon having much to do at all it was nonetheless nip and tuck. Skacel had a great effort svaed by the Rangers keeper - I think if that one had gone in it would have been much better for Hearts and Rudi Skacel. The once hailed hero of the Tynecastle revolution Rudi Skacel is looking decidedly below par these days and the still prolific "were not worthy" actions from the crowd look less deserved with every week. He has also been coming in for heavy criticism for diving, feigning injury blah blah. Some of that is deserved. Rudi tho he just needs a goal or two and he would be right back up there - oh for a Skacel hat-trick tomorrow in the Semi Final.
The second half was a bit more one sided in favour of Rangers and Hearts now well known lack of ability to play for 90 minutes was there for all to see. Rangers scored a very similar goal to the Hearts one the ony difference being the cross found it's way to the back post before being hammered home.
Given the predicament of both clubs and what I have seen of Hearts frailties in the latter part of games that they haven't killed off, I think Rangers were guilty of not going for the win, they could have taken it I think if they had thrown a bit of caution to the wind and went for the throat. Hopefully that lack of endeavour will allow Hearts to remain in 2nd at the end of the season.
Rangers did however have one chance to steal it with about 15 minutes left. A cross into the Hearts box was poorly cleared and it fell to Buffel ( I think ) he hemmered a shot towards the right roof of Gordon's net. Craig Gordon ( Scotland, Scotland's number 1 ) pulled off save of the season to keep it out.
Gordon just re-signed for Hearts this week, he is the one guy tho that I think we should just not stand in his way, he is destined for bigger and better things and could in the years to come amount to the best Scottish keeper, ever really.

Graham Rix and Jim Duffy
The only thing I can say about this is Vlad's timing stinks.
Surely to maximise the damage done he should have waited until the morning of the semi final to sack his management team for the 2nd time this season. Thought maybe he could have asked Rix to get some mints from the garage in Harthill on the way to the semi and then drove the team bus away whilst he was in there, Graham would have got the message.
I was never in favour of Rix in the first place, I did however warm to him for a few weeks during the winter but in the end he was on a hiding to nothing really. I don't think he will have any regrets at all, he gave it a shot in very difficult circumstances, he did come up a bit short tho.
What annoyed me most was Rix's acceptance of mediocrity, he seemed to take an away draw at Fir Park as OK because the team played alright and Motherwell at home are no mugs and well almost any reason he could think off to make things seem OK. It's not OK and I don't care about giving other teams respect I just want us to beat them.
Official reasons given for his dismissal -
Too many draws, yes exactly far too many draws
Some of the signings in January were not of Hearts standing, for this I can only think of Lee Johnson and that bloke Hackett, since the rest of the signings were Vlad's. I have to say bringing people up from the lower reaches of English football was allways going to be a gamble. Never seen Hackett, Lee johnson looked like a half decent squad player a bit small and light maybe but he could kick a ball. Christ knows what those two must think of things now - I guess they will be heading back down south again in a few weeks anyroads.
Duffy had to go ofcourse, he was part of the Rix team, as I said before he is just a failed Scottish manager so what the hell we were doing trying to present him as some kind director of football, I will never know.
Once again the big names from european football are being bandied about for the Hearts job, good grief. I have a couple of weeks holiday coming up, do you think if I put in my application I can be manager for a bit.
So caretaker manager is Ivanauskis, he is the guy who managed Kaunas to a title a couple of years ago and Vlad sacked him a few games into the next season ( because a one too many draws ) mmmmmm. At the moment I don't think it matters a damn who runs the team or picks the players or whatever, we will limp to the end of the season now and take whatever we can muster for ourselves.

Falkirk 1 Hearts 2
Nasty nasty game, this is the one where Rudi got all his bad press for diving etc.
Most pundits thought the truama of the sacking mid week would knock the good ship Jambo ofcourse enough for Falkirk to de-rail them.
Naw we fought for all three points and deserved it in the end. The run in to the end of the season will be hard going for Hearts - we need to go away to Celtic, Rangers and Hibs, so we will need every one of these ugly wins we can get. Not sure what the Rangers run in is yet.
Rangers play Dundee Utd at Tannadice in the afternoon after the Hearts-Hibs semi-final, so they have a choice to bring it back to just 3 points behind us, we will have a game in hand but that game is at Parkhead when Celtic can win the league if they get all 3 points.

Hibs v Hearts Scottish cup Semi-Final
Really, really wanted a Hearts v Hibs final but it was not to be. Make no mistake tho and no disrespect to Gretna ( who beat Dundee 3 - 0 earlier today ) this is the final.
I had been weirdly comfortable all week, perfectly relaxed about this game, for a number of reasons I just couldn't see where the goals would come from for Hibs, so I felt totally confident in a glorious Hearts victory in what could prove to be the biggest Edinburgh derby in decades.
Until !!
I woke up at 4am on Thursday morning in a cold sweat, I had just witnessed in my dream the odd goal in 5 being slotted into the Hearts net with 2 minutes to go. I can still see the goal now, it's horrible.
Ofcourse this is nonsense, just a dream blah blah.
Don't care !
The effect this has had on me is to turn my guts upside down and inside out - I am a nervous wreck. At the time of writing this there are 17hours and 15 minutes to kick off - I will have to drink a lot to settle down tonight.
Managed to get 5 tickets so it will be a bit of a family day out to Hampden tomorrow on the bus from Tynecastle.

HOOOOO ON THE JAMBO's

It's Football Jim but not as we know it

A small diversion this week, this match report involves itself less with the Hearts v Livi game and more with the game i actually went to.
By all accounts Hearts scraped a 3 - 2 win away to Livi, Roman Bednar coming off the bench to grab a late late winner.

So to the other game - Barcelona 3 Deportivo La Coruna 2


I was sat in my hotel room killing a few minutes before we set off to the game, reading a Lonely Planet guide to Barcelona, that a workmate lent me. I migrated obviously to the pages devoted to Barca, here comes the history lesson....
Back in the day, around 1898 to 1900 there were four teams that grew up around the Barcelona area, two survive to this day.
The first of those four is
Societat Espanyola de Futbol They have changed their name numerous times but always retained the 'Espanyol' bit, this reflects their origin. Espanyol were, out of this group of four teams, the team of Spaniards.
The other three teams were -
l'Irish
L'Hispania
Barcelona

The origins of L'Irish is pretty self evident, the team was originated by a bunch of Irish immigrants or workers or whatever.
L'Hispania was set up by a similar bunch of Scotsmen !
Barcelona was set up by another bunch of immigrant workers, this time......................English !!! Gmmmph

So i skipped along to the local shop, bought my Deportivo scarf and jumped the bus up to the Nou Camp.

Never noticed before but check out Barca's crest






We got done a bit for tickets i think but what the hell. Delays in travel meant we didn't get into our hotel until after 12 on Friday night. My brain was frazzled as i asked the guy at the hotel reception about the best way to get tickets for the game. He claimed that the game was more or less a sell out and there were only 100euro tickets left (about £70). So i agreed to pay him the 200euro's assuming he got the tickets for me. At the same time another bloke was picking up his tickets, he got 12 and agreed to sell me 2 for 60euro's each. Great i thought. These tickets got us seats in the highest part of the stadium and were no doubt the cheapest seats in the house, not 60euros thats for sure. Any roads who cares really, still a fantastic view in a stunning stadium.





A game of subbuteo before kick-off



So to the game........ yip it's just like watching the Jambo's on a Saturday afternoon.
Err no
Barca started like they play a different game from the rest of the planet, it all began from the kick-off, the ball was rolled out to Ronaldhino on the left touchline, two players were on him so he back heeled it 30 yards down the line for, maybe Decco to pick up. Maybe Decco may be not, i was about 5 miles away up in the gods.
1 minute later and Ronaldhino is this time tearing through the middle and there are fouls piling in all around him. The refs whistle blows and i think maybe Deportivo stop playing for a split second and Barca are through on goal and slam the ball into the top left. The ref dissallowed the goal and sent the ball back to 30 yards out for the foul. The goal should have stood i think so the free kick seemed like small compensation. There was only one thing to do really so Ronaldhino did exactly that, he curled the ball into exactly the same spot that the goal went in.
Barca 1 DePortivo 0.
And the crowd go Barca, Barca, Barca
The game continues with Barca playing some quite incredible football, there is nothing new here - they get eons more time on the ball than you do in the UK but still what they do with it is just sublime when compared to our blood and snaughters version of this game.
Henrik Larrson was a hero for Celtic for a good 5 years or so then left when we all thought he had passed his best and joined well he joined Barca. He is a bit of a local hero in Barcelona too, he played an hour of the game, maybe he has lost a tiny bit of his pace but the football brain is still there. The best example was an early ball to the far post and Larsson, he had a chance of scoring, a good chance of scoring, the ball was coming in hard and fast and the angle was getting tighter and tighter, but still he had a good shout at heading in on the back post. 99.99% of players would have done just that and some would have scored. At the very last second, he changed his mind and managed to get his nect round the ball to knock it back into the path of Eto'o for a stone wall goal. Eto'o does not have Larrsons brain and couldn't believe the ball landed at this feet 6 yards out with no one near him - so he made an arse of it.
DePortivo continued to chase shadows but Barca seemed content to play football without necessarily scoring any goals. A surprise corner from DePortivo's first attack was not dealt with so Barca were punished with an easily headed goal. No one, including the DePortivo players could quite believe it.
Barca 1 DePortivo 1.
And the crowd go Barca, Barca, Barca
Ten minutes later and DePortivo have a free kick 40 yards out, they cheekily ping the ball over the back line for two strikers to run onto unhindred, one of them slots the ball home. No one, including the DePortivo players could quite believe it.
Barca 1 DePortivo 2.
And the crowd go Barca, Barca, Barca
The crowd get slightly agitated and Barca respond with a bit more urgency ( but not much ). I could tell that DePortivo didn't really believe in themselves even though they seemed to be able to score any time they felt like it. A corner to Barca with 5 minutes to the end of the first half is pinged to the back post for Larrson to nip it in. Everyone, including the DePortivo players could believe it.
Barca 2 DePortivo 2.
And the crowd go Barca, Barca, Barca
DePortivo's response to the situation in the second half was to put thereselves about a bit, i thought the ref was in danger of losing control for a while. There was one time where all 22 players were rucking together, no real fighting but handbags and hair that sort of thing. The ref just walked away and let them get on with it and booked a few of them when they were done, bizarre. Barca just played with an heir of innevitability. Not exactly overwhelming pressure but pretty much contant, they eventually wore down the defence and Eto'o popped up with the winner with 25 minutes to go.
Barca 3 DePortivo 2.
And the crowd go Barca, Barca, Barca
All in all pretty much scripted and i got the impression Barca were holding back in the end given they are playing Chelsea this week.
The football was fantastic and the spactacle is brilliant, but the game lacked a bit of something that you get in the UK that they don't have. Venom i think. I guess i would like to see a Real Madrid game or even the Chelsea game this week to see how worked up a Barca crowd can get this one was a bit of a damp squib in that sense. Even at 2 - 1 down the crowd seemed to expect the victory would come in the end and so did not show the kind of delight you would get at Tynecastle if we had played a similar get out of jail free card.

The rest of the weekend in Barcelona was alright as well.

D

WOW

Ok, the next installment begins with an apology for missing last weeks update. The truth is i am just finding it hard to get excited or motivated - why on earth should that be, we beat Motherwell 3 - 0 for crying out loud and the game saw the return of two of our more celebrated players, to help us think that things may be going to get better very soon. Even more, if you handed any Hearts fan this season so far at the start of it all, to a man we would have bitten your hand off, so why should i feel a lack of motivation to keep this going.
Confessions, i think we just expect too much, have been spoiled into thinking we have some devine right to annihilate the opposition every time they turn up at Tynecastle. Now who does that remind us of i wonder?- those buggers have had decades of dominance and the knowledge that they have dwarfed the rest of us for a time spanning 3 centuries now, and we mump and moan about their arrogance and the devine right to win that they think they have. It feels symptomatic, i just accepted the 3 - 0 defeat of Motherwell as matter of fact ( in truth it was pretty uninspiring in any case ), it is a week later now and i am thinking hard to remember the goals, i will get there.

So how come i am inspired to right some stuff down this week? cos i am inspired alright! I am packed to the windaes with sporting superlatives and literary juice to match ( maybe not quite enough for a beach towel but not far off it ). This was cup week, we are through to the semi final without having really broken sweat yet or having to step outside of Gorgie either. But that is not why i am so full of it today. No, what went on yesterday evening just blew me away, blew away all the maroon fog of reliance on HMFC to make me stand up and shout.




SCOTLAND 18 - ENGLAND 12


That was the most fantastic performance by a Scottish rugby team that i have seen in years, 1990, 2000?
Scotland absolutely nailed England in every respect on every inch of Murrayfield last night - save for a very ropey lineout we were unbelievable. Scotland out-fought, out-thought, out-ran, out-played and in the end out-shone their southern counterparts from the first minute to the last. The stats are supposedly outrageous too - apparently Scotland made 112 tackles and missed just 6 of them, that doesn't tell the whole story tho it doesn't bring home the bone shattering force of every one of those 112 hits.
It has always been the case, as long as i have taken notice, that when we match up against the auld enemy we give away some pounds per man in the pack. My limited understanding of this game for mentalists aside, that always seemed like an unfair advantage to me - like Marvin Hagler meets Mike Tyson. This time round it was worse, the English just keep getting bigger. They were a full stone a man heavier than us. So the perceived wisdom is - eventually the heavier pack will grind down and wear out their smaller opponents and that is the story of England's 6 nations so far this year. The opposition are in touch with them until the last 20 minutes of the game, then the English power superiority starts to pay dividends and they run away with the game scoring most of their points in that last quarter.
So at half time after the English had owned the ball for the last 30 minutes and had pummelled and bashed against a solid Scottish defence, you could be forgiven for thinking that the second half would be more of the same eventually leading to the innevitable English tries and Scottish gallant defeat - well think again - we made them think again.
The Scottish teams defensive performance had the curious effect of wearing down the heavier opposition, but more we wore down their thought processes and their belief in themselves. As sure as the sun comes up each day the game was turned by degrees in Scotland's favour. By half way through the second half the English attack had run out of ideas and ability to cross the gain line and Scotland's running play was forcing penalties, which we were converting. A drop goal set the seal on a passage of play and forced home the fact that we not only could but probably would win this one. I would have been quite happy to report on a valiant Scottish pack holding on desperately to snatch a narrow win from under the noses of the superior English but that wouldn't be the truth. In the end Scotland were as likely to score as the English were and ran out well deserving winners.
It has been many years since i have gotten excited about Scotland and the six nations, i remember when i used to spend Saturday afternoons in the pub watching great games ( and many a mental night followed ), some we lost and some we won but we always thought we could win. That belief has been gone for a while now from Scottish rugby, this and the earlier victory against France might just bring those days back - that would be fantastic.

So back to the football -

3 - 0 against Motherwell last weekend.
A storming run down the left and cross to the near post was parried by the keeper only for Jankauskas to pounce on the loose bal and slam it into the top of the net. This came immediately after Motherwell hit the post, with Craig Gordon stranded. Hearts were 1-0 up after 7 minutes. Not so long after we were 2 - 0 up, quite similar only the cross came from the right this time and the ball came all the way out to past the 18 yard line. Jankauskas again, he started this move passing out to the right from a midfield position. He had just kept jogging toward the box and did not have to break his stride when the ball came back out his way - he just melted it into the top right hand side of the net. It was a screamer. So the famous Tynecastle mauling for the next half an hour i think, but no we are not really ticking just now. The disruptions of January and early February are still flowing through the team i think.
Motherwell kept plugging away and probably deserved something out of the game but the nail came with a neat move through their midfield and back four that saw Callum Elliot in one of those chases for the ball that can go one of three ways.
The keeper rushing out just gets there before the attacker and manages to smother the ball or launch it up the park.
The desperate defender brings down the attacker, penalty and sent off
or
The attacker gets there just in front of the keeper and deftly clips the ball over his head and into the empty net - Elliot accomplished this with great aplomb.
Still when all is said and done we made heavy weather of a 3 - 0 gubbing.

So to the cup game, Partick Thistle at Tynecastle. They were in the Premier League just a couple of seasons ago but have fallen badly and are now stuck in the second division. Looked like there were divisions between the two when Hartley crossed for Jankauskas to head in after only 3 minutes. So you would be forgiven once again for thinking - here we go, this one will be over by half time. Not a bit of it a combination of a pretty sloppy game by Hearts and Partick indulging in their cup final meant that Partick were always in this and should really have gotten a draw out of it. A cracking effort by Cesnauskis which reminded me of a goal Kenny Dalgleish scored against Spain at Hampden in the qualifiers for the 86 world cup - i was behind the goals at the time watching King Kenny curl the ball into the top left corner - you know i think that is the last time i have gone to a Scotland game? Maybe Cesnauskis hit the ball in a bit straighter and with more venom than Dalgleish's glorious curling effort but other than that they were pretty much the same thing.
Bednar had come on as part of his recuperation from long term injury but got booked after a couple of minutes and red carded ten minutes later for diving in the box - it was pretty hard to see but i think he took a dive the fanny.
So twenty minutes left and we are 2 up and down to ten men, Partick throw everything they had at us and went 5 up, a decent Hearts performance would have picked them off on the break but we were pretty poor and struggled just to keep possession.
A great solo effort ended in Partick scoring a well deserved goal and the stage was set for Hearts to hold on desperately in the end.

So we are through all be it with no glory, who cares really. I have made my mind up that i will be satisfied with nothing less than tanking Hibs in the final. So Hibs beat Falkirk 5 - 1, excellent, we must avoid each other in the semi's tho.

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.

Glory Glory to H ..................

Hold on wait a minute, lets get one thing straight....

WHEN THE HEARTS GO UP TO LIFT THE SCOTTISH CUP WE'LL BE THERE ! WE'LL BE THERE !!

Lets get another thing straight, i took as much pleasure watching the highlights of Hibs mugging rangers 3 - 0 at Ibrox again! as i did watching that of Hearts saunter through to the quarter finals against a less than fortunate and less than any good Aberdeen team.
It's not so much that Hibs played out of their skins, i have mentioned this before this season, you don't really need to play out of your skins against Rangers cos they really are pretty crap. They just rode their luck a bit in the first half and Rangers missed opportunities and Hibs took their chances. When they got their noses in front there was only one winner and in the end Rangers were all over the place and a rampant Hibs team could have made it 5 or 6. So much for the wee team fae Edinburgh, lets get back to the main event. I'll wax lyrical about the romance of the cup, welcome respite from the stutteringly mental league campaign.

It is early doors yet, only the quarter finals after all but with both halves of the gruesome twosome out of the competition we have got to fancy our chances.

Here are the ones i remember.......

1976 Hearts v Rangers
Was it 2 - 1 or 3 -1 to the bad guys, i can't recall now.
The bits i do remember are -
Jim Jeffries was playing for Hearts
Dad had a dozen cans of McEwans Export secreted about his personage somehow?
There were 86,000 or something there that day but it seemed like twice as many.
We were beat from the off.

1986 Hearts v Aberdeen
Christ! we got murdered 3 - 0
After the apocalypse of the Saturday before this game, i am certain everyone of us in the crowd that day knew we had nothing left in the tank, physically or emotionally. It was like watching a funeral procession.
Actually I seem to remember we were unlucky in the first 10 or 15 minutes so maybe it could all have been very different.
Aberdeen just didn't lose cup finals around then, nae wonder their supporters still wear drain pipes and mullets.

1996 Hearts v Rangers
Rangers 5 Hearts didnae turn up
This is the one where i drove up from Yeovil for the weekend and you flew over from Toronto, so we could watch the game in the Caley Sample Rooms. The fun lasted about as long as i waited at the bar to get served and the staff were sh*t hot that day.
Actaully I seem to remember we were unlucky in the first 5 minutes and so maybe ........ na screw it, lets just forget all about this one.

hhhhmmmmm I detect a bit of a pattern here, we get to the cup final every ten years - in the year with a 6 in it and then we get gubbed and slope of back to Edinburgh for another decade. This does not bode well for this years campaign, this is after all a decade later, it is a year with a 6 in it. We need the pattern broken, wait a minute.....

1998 Hearts v Rangers
Rangers 1 Hearts 2
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Don't remember a thing!
Jason and Dad missed the game because of the car crash we had on the way to the semi-final. We make up for that this year.


In between these two finals we had the final of the diddy cup in 97 - we nearly took Rangers. Ended up getting beat 4 - 2, but we had got it back to 2 - 2 from 2 - 0 down and they were definitely rattled - until Ally Mcmoist stepped in to kill us off. Still thats just the diddy cup and who gives a flying .... about that.

So to Saturday's game.
The first half was almost a mirror image of the game against Hibs last week.
Shaky start, but survive without losing a goal. Then we get the break and in a frenzy of 20 minutes we kill the game off and force a sending off for the hapless opposition. I wonder what would have happened in either of these games if we had not weathered the initial 15 minutes? Don't think we have had to come back from a goal down at Tynecastle this season.
There is a bit more to this than meets the eye tho -
Hearts were without Hartley due to a 3 match suspension - this is for the petulent kick-out he had at the end of the Celtic game in January. Didn't see it myself, i was too busy watching Craig Gordon try to turn and volley in a last minute equaliser at the time !!
This was troublesome for us but couple that with now regular's, Takiss Fyssas and Rudi Skacel both calling in sick with flu and, if this was last week we really would have struggled, but we have 2 teams now. In came Goncalves ( Gon-Tha-L-Ves i think ) for Fyssas and new record signing Mirsad Beslija for Rudi. So this was maybe just a good opportunity to try out some of these guys.
Beslija is the guy who most noise has been made about and the signing dragged on for ages, it was off it was on. There was more than one agent wanting a cut of the action or something like that. Anyroads 1Million euros and he eventually signed. His debut was pretty quiet all in all until he picked up a knock midway through the second half. Goncalves on the other hand had a great game, this i think might just work out a treat. I am a big Fyssas fan, a left back who is also a cultured football player. One thing he does not have tho is pace so there are games where i worry a wee bit on that side. So if we can mix and match Fyssas and Goncalves dependant on who they will be up against then fantastic.
Beslija is a right sided winger, so Cesnauskis was moved over to the left and he showed his worth by setting up the 2nd goal from that side.
The first goal was set up by Callum Elliott, he took the ball on the right and rolled his foot over it a few times , sheilding from the Aberdeen defender. Absolutely no right to get a cross over, he clipped to the near post for Pospisil to neatly side foot into the roof of the net. Very good finish and great work by Elliott but he should never had been allowed to cross.
The second goal was similar but from the left, Cesnauskis is pretty quick and good with the ball at his feet, he hit the by line and played a cut back low to the front post, Elliott slotted home at the near post. A lot of people raved about Pospisil's goal but i thought Elliott's finish to beat the keeper at the near post was class.
Just before the second goal, Aberdeen had a stone wall penalty turned down, Andy Webster blatantly pulling back Steve Crawford on the six yard line. Hard lines for them i guess.
The third goal was also hard lines for them, a neat through ball for Pospisil to run on to he appeared to be clipped on the edge of the box. Clear goal scoring opportunity so the defender had to go. But then so was the Webster/Crawford affair. Like i said in the match report for the Celtic game, i don't like that rule. A booking fair enough but sending off is harsh. Penalty to Hearts, hard lines on Aberdeen, the tackle was a good 2 feet outside the box. But what they hell, some you win some you lose, the important thing is we took our chances.
In any case even if Aberdeen had scored, we would have put more into the game and beaten them anyroads.
The second half was a bit of a snore, with Aberdeen dead and buried Hearts wisely conserved energy and played the game out.

Dundee Utd away on Tuesday night, and the very luckless Aberdeen are back down to Tynecastle next Saturday on league business. Another week of this new squad training together should make it even tougher on the sheep worry-ers.
At the same time Celtic play Rangers at Ibrox so somethings got to give, my own preferred choice not being a gambling man is for a draw, which will hurt each of them in equal measures - course we need to win both these games to make any sense of that.

Yellow Submarine

All together now ( to the tune of Yellow Submarine )

Rudi Skacel is a F**k'n goal machine, a F**k'n goal machine, a F**k'n goal machine.

For my money you can swap 'goal machine' for 'lunatic' and it works perfectly well.
Rudi is 100% certifiable lunatic, in the best possible way.
After scoring one and setting up the other three goals in the four - one demolition of sad sad Hibees you can understand Rudi's delight! At the end of the game he is going through his standard winning ritual of swanning around the pitch applauding the crowd etc. This time he takes his top off and starts waving it about above his head - Andy Webster comes over and must have said 'why don't you throw your top into the crowd Rudi, the fans will love it" Rudi promptly lobs his top into the Wheatfield stand. Not enough tho by the time Rudi has gotten round to the Gorgie stand he has decided to also take his shorts off and lob them into the stand too. Just as well he had some cycling shorts on underneath - like i say Rudi Skacel is a f**k'n lunatic.

What a display by Skacel, here is how it went.
For a number of reasons including,
The dismal display against Kilmarnock last week
Continuing injuries and suspensions, Jankauskas, Bednar, Pressley, Pospisil not fully fit
Never knowing which Hibs team will turn up
I spent the whole week thinking this was going to be a tough one, to the point where by Friday, my water had devined an impending defeat. I couldn't see where the goals would come from. Shows you how much i know!
The first 5 minutes were 200 miles an hour all in the direction of the Hibs goal, no real chances but corners won and all was looking good.
Then and very suddenly.
Hibs kicked in to gear and owned the next 15 minutes of the game, creating 3 good chances. Good chances yes but all were fairly easily dealt with by Craig Gordon, still i was believing my waters and preparing for the goal that seemed on it's way.
Then and very suddenly.
A break away down the left, Elliot collects and brings Fyassis into the game who plays a ball right down the channel for Skacel to chase down. Never thought he would make it but he strecthed right at the line and cut back for Hartley at the front post to dispatch for 1 - 0.
Against the run of play sure but Hearts never looked back and immediately went for the juggular. The next 25 minutes was a fine example of our now familiar tactic of completely overwhelming the opposition. There is not a team in Scotland who can live with Hearts when they hit this form.
A free kick 5 minutes later is swung over to the back post, Christophe Berra knocks down for Skacel to leather the ball down off the ground through a crowded box and over the keeper in the opposite corner of the net. Rudi SKacel is a ....................
Hibs are rocking and beginning to lose the plot by now. Scott Brown, had been tackled from the back very early in the game by Brellier who took the booking. Brown kept playing but it was clear he was injured. Both Stewart and Thomson were putting it about in frustration as much as anything else.
Hearts had Lee Johnson making his home debut, this is the guy we took from Yeovil, must say i worried for him. He looks about 5ft 0 and 7 stone - seemed a tidy wee player tho and looks like he might spark up a good midfield partnership with Hartley.
As half time is approaching Rudi takes hold of the ball and goes for the kill, Hibs defence chase him into the box, Rudi cuts inside and two defenders lunge in at the same time - penalty. Hartley slams into the top corner. 3 - 0 and Tynecastle is rocking and Hibs supporters are leaving.
I did not see the sending off incident, an elbow in Mikoliunas's face by Gary Smith, just seen the aftermath. looked like an off the ball incident. Hibs had lost the plot.
Lucky for Hibs, half time came soon after this.
I have seen a load of derby games now where Hearts were running away with things 2 or 3 up at half time but this is the first time i think i can remember when the punters were genuinely thinking about the possibility of turning in a 7-0. By 5 minutes into the second half i was too. Another rampaging Skacel run down the left and stinging cross to the front post for Elliot to ram home from close range 4 - 0.
Got to give Hibs some credit here, they stuck to it, never gave up kept playing away. They got their goal at a time when Hearts took their foot off the pedal for a few minutes. Wee fast Irish bloke Sproule had made a couple of runs down the wings and into the box when Hearts should have been snuffing him out. O'connor took the ball in midfield and managed to swan about just outside the box before slamming a shot low into the corner of the net. The remaining Hibs fans kind of managed a bit of a celebration, but they were on their way home anyway.
Hearts put together a pile more chances but the heat was out of their display, it can't be easy this overwhelm the oppossition tactic, must cost some amount of energy, so i guess you can forgive them for slowing down a bit. But at 4 - 0 if we had pushed that little bit more and got the 5th, the 7 - 0 was definitely on the cards. Still not to be and we don't care. After the 2 - 0 defeat down at Easter Road earlier in the season a said next time they came we would kick their skinny green arses and thats exactly what we did, bloody marvelous. Celtic dropped 2 points also letting a 3 - 1 at home turn in to a 3 - 3 against Dundee Utd. Not saying anything about that they are still 8 points ahead. Rangers have now taken over Hibs into 3rd place, without being very good at all they are at least a football team again, unlike the aberration they were at the start of the season. Don't think Hibs will see 3rd place again this year. So thats where we are, Celtic have us by 8 and we have Rangers by 7 and there is still a lot of football to be played.

All over bar the shouting

OK i have struggled to bring myself to put any words down about Hearts, but here goes.
Two games have come and gone since the last update. The details are completely unimportant, it's all just arithmetic in the end.
We got 3 out of 6 and Celtic got 6 out of 6 and we are now 10 points adrift and closer to Rangers and Hibs than we are to the league leaders.

So all thoughts of a glorious league campaign are tucked away in the drawer for another decade or so.
We still have the cup, yes the cup is still there for the taking, and we still have a very creditable 2nd place to be fought for, and it will be a fight there is little doubt about that. I just can't get excited about coming 2nd tho, i have been there before.

The buggers got us dreaming again, after the fantastic demolition of Falkirk on boxing day and the desperate fortune of 'that game against Celtic' (the more i think about that one the more lucky Celtic were to get out of Tynecastle with anything at all never mind all the points).
We had a hard fought victory against Kilmarnock in the cup at Tynecastle a week later then the first of the two games i mentioned earlier - away to Dunfermline.
A shaky first 30 minutes with Hearts huffing and puffing but not really getting very far, the game finished with Hearts running away four-one winners. There were claims of 'Hearts are back on top form once again' and 'this league ain't over yet', couple this with lots of movement in the transfer market and we were once again beginning to believe that we could make up this deficit. After all we still have Celtic to play twice and both Rangers and Hibs are there to take points off them.
The transfer market has been too active and is still too volatile to go into in depth, it will all settle down at the end of January and we will see where we are then. The last 15 minutes of the Dunfermline game, game over was marked by all 3 Hearts substitutes being new names.
There was a moment of brilliance reported by Radio Scotland pundits as 'nearly the goal of the century', Rudi Skacel was 30 yards out on the left touchline when he spotted the keeper just off his line, he curled a shot with the outside of his left boot over the keeper and destined for the top corner. The ball came off the junction of post and bar. Sounds like it would have been a cracker and just like the kind of goal i score in Pro-evo soccer everyday. We were show boating in the end and i spent the whole week on the up thinking "OK we lost to Celtic but it was a very close call and since Ibrox we have been playing as good if not better than at any time this season".
Then we go to Rugby park.
Arse!
Meantime and i am not so sure about this - Neil McCann re-signs for Hearts, OK he's a legend from 98 in any case and he's/was a solid international, proven decent quality, but you know he's in his (early) thirties so i am not so sure it is such a great move. He plays on the left in almost exactly the Skacel role so is this Hearts accepting that Skacel is not ours to keep and he has sold himself far too well in this shop window and Marseille will sell him onto bigger and better things - who knows. I suppose the timing couldn't have been better McCann is straight in the team against Kilmarnock for the now suspended Rudi Skacel ( vast majority if not all his bookings have been for 'appearing too happy after scoring a goal', this is a new rule over here these days, it is almost impossible to score and then have a laugh without getting booked)
The fates conspire once again as it appears that McCann is the only Hearts player who looks like he might do something against Kilmarnock until he gets his knee ligaments ripped out after 20 odd minutes - he's out for 2 months. Hearts never recovered and without Pressley ( also suspended ) there was an air of innevitability in the defeat we took.
Had McCann not taken that injury i guess things might have worked out - i have whinged a bit lately that for all Skacel's greatness you never really get more than a half out of him. I seem to remember McCann being just the same so maybe playing them a half each would have worked really well.

Comedy moment of the week.
For a long time now, Celtic supporters (mostly) have referred to Ibrox as "Castle Greyskull", this is after an eighties cartoon series called He-Man or something like that.
Rangers in response call Parkhead 'The Piggery', not wishing to take sides but that just has no class at all.
So lying in bed saturday morning watching BBC News24, the weather report is being delivered by a wee scots lass, she is relating the weather to all the major sporting events of the day, at this point she is in Scotland. She goes through each of the big games given her thoughts on what the weather will be like for the game, finally she gets to the last venue and says, dead pan with quality execution - "It will be dry and sunny but cold, around seven degrees, so rap up warm if you are travelling to Castle Greyskull this afternoon for the Rangers v Livingston match". She is apparently a Kilmarnock fan upset at Rangers stealing their striker, not that they needed him against us.

So Hibs at the weekend, never have a clue which Hibs team will turn up, we will not be on full cylinders so this one could be a real struggle. Hopefully i will have a bit more of a grin on my face for the next installment.

Ramblings

Originally posted on 8th January, mostly responses here to questions i was asked about why there was no director of football and why we could no longer beat either side of the gruesome twosome. Meantime we had beat kilmarnock 2 - 1 in the cup but i have completely neglected to mention anything about it.


Hey,

You know it man, this is nothing new for us long suffering brethren.
I think at the moment i am just glad that i only have one team to lead me through the mire. Interested tho i get ( a bit ) i just don't feel the Leafs, maybe if we got to see some of the games over here i would get in there too.
Jambo's for ever indeed and this is still the most spectacular season at Tynecastle for eons and it is not going to stop.

The why's
I think it is pretty clear over here, to put it in laymans terms ........ "Romanov, he's a blaw, is eh no"
There was a documentary on BBCScotland a few weeks back, it was a very poorly veiled attempt at undermining our owner. The basic premise was to uncover some of his unsavoury business exploits over the years whilst he ammassed his millions. I ask you what successful entrepreneur does not have a few dodgy deals in his closet? The best they could come up with was a scam he has with a company in Croatia or something like that where he is exploiting a loophole in their tax laws so he can maximise the companies profit at the expense of the workers pension scheme. All sounds pretty ruthless but i still think that there are many worse goings on in your bog standard global conglomerate. Basically he is not a mafia boss or a KGB agent just a bloke who made a lot of money selling western shit to the Russians during the collapse of the Soviet Union. But that is not my point, during the show he was interviewed and stated (this is pretty much verbatim) "In ten years Hearts will be champions of Europe! Hearts will never be beaten five nil from Barcelona or Real Madrid, Hearts will be champions and i will be Hearts champion" Good grief can you imagine any British boss coming out with that kind of wild statement and he had this smile on his face like you just knew that he knew he was talking shite. I figured this is a cultural thing it is ok in his neck of the woods to come out with outrageous stuff like that, infact the people expect and respect that kind of possitive talk. Over here tho we just kind of shrug our shoulders and give it - "come oan man get real".
So the long and short of it is, this bloke will say just about anything if he thinks it sounds good at the time.
I think Hearts must be seen as a poisoned challice by a lot of the football world and will stay that way until at least the end of the season at least. Maybe then if the keel is even we might be in better shape to attract, players, managers and DOFs.

I am maybe warming a little to Rix, the style of football over most of the last two games has been as good as anything, maybe even better than under Burley. Maybe he just took a bit of time to get the team to start playing again after the trauma's, well see, cup game against Kilmarnock at the weekend and we play Hibs pretty soon so chances to get us smiling again.
and.
I was never really convinced by Burley, not for any other reason than he had never managed the team under pressure so the jury was still out, Rix at least has picked up a really hot potato and is running with it. Could just have been that Burley happened upon a brand new team, who clicked and caught a lot of people cold. If you analyse the results and the performances from the start of the season - apart from the first 3 games of Burleys reign, each game was steadily less good than the one before. The logical end was allways to start drawing games and eventually start losing games too. I remember commenting on the 1-0 win up at Inverness in September that it was far too early to be using the "grinding out a result when you are not playing well is a sign of a championship team" adage.
I am liking Rix's approach to substitutions at the moment, over the past 3 games he is making exactly the right change and in good time also - none of this bringing a new striker on with 7 minutes to go. For sure it didn't work against Celtic but he was forced into that with Fyassas being ordered off. His changes are just made with conviction and make absolute sense.

Burley is now manager of Southampton who have lost their 3 games under him, if Heart of Midlothian football club is a hot potato then Southampton is the English equivalent - Harry Rednapp, has now moved from managing arch rivals Portsmouth to managing Southampton for 6 months then moved back to Portsmouth, meanwhile Southampton get relegated from the premiership for the first time since the 70s.

Paul Weller

Originally sent on 4th january after that game against Celtic

Once wrote.......

ana kick in the balls, ah say, Thats Entertainment, Thats Entertainme-ent.

It sure was like a huge drop kick in the balls but it certainly wasn't entertaining.

We had a wee bash in our house on hogmanay and i mentioned to one of the guys - Jonny Crisp ( so known for his heroic crisp eating exploits ) he could just as easily be known as Jonny the Tim tho. I said - i can feel it in my blood mate, tomorrow will be the biggest winning margin i have ever witnessed against Celtic. In truth a 2 goal win is the best i have ever seen. A 3 - 1 win just after you left for Canada and also memorable as the day Marie's wee brother broke his ankle celebrating the third goal ( jumping around like an eejit in our spot behind the goal by the shed, the terrace was a precarious place )
By 2:15 on Sunday i thought my dream was manifest reality and at least a 4 goal kicking of the tic was coming, me and Nathan and the rest of 3/4 of Tynecastle were delirious. By 3:47 we were dumbstruck, bewildered, dazed and confused.

I guess you may well have got this game so i won't go through it kick by tackle. A few of the highlights.
I hate that bloody last man, clear cut goal scoring, foul = immediate red card rule. I just can't see how you can rule that a player makes a genuine challenge for the ball, gets it wrong and gets sent off. It is just not right. Anyroads a lot of talk that Bobo Balde carried out an exact replica of the Fyassas sending off challenge in the first half, and so therefore should have also been sent off. It is allways the inconsistencies that annoy us most. Neither should have gone in my book - the fact that Fyassas walked and Balde did not absolutely meant that Celtic took the points and not Hearts.
Hearts lost to two stupid tackles deep in our left back position (Fyassas's side) two free kicks and equally free headers and we were sunk. I am absolutely certain tho that only one or none of those stupid tackles would have gone in if Fyassas had still been on the park. Skacel and Hartley the guilty eejits.
The difference between the Fyassas and Balde incidents was in the drama of the two cases -
Balde :- A neat passing movement on Hearts right just outside the box split the packed Celtic defence and in an instant Cesnauskis was straight through. Balde is a big lumbering oaf and just flew in and took Cesnauskis late. Free kick and a booking. Exactly right in my book. All over in an instant.
Fyassas :- Hearts were pressing and lost possession in midfield, Celtic broke very fast and a great ball was played down their left channel. As a mark of how pressing we had been our central defence was nowhere and Fyassas had to come across from our left back to the opposite side of the box to make the challenge. So the scene is - Celtics shaun malloney and Hearts Takiss Fyassis both make 40 yard dashes for the ball, which is racing towards Hearts 18 yard box. No one else is anywhere near it. It was pure 50 50 stuff and so for me should never be a sending off no matter if Malloney is floored or not. A genuine challenge is a genuine challenge. But the point is it just looked much more spectacular than the Balde incident, and i have to say, the minute the challenge went in i muttered - he's off! It was the opposite end of the ground from me so i did not catch the subtelties but by all accounts it was never going to be a goal scoring opportunity as Malloney knocked the ball too far forward and Fyassas never actually caught him anyway. I guess thats what happens when you slide tackle in from 15 yards out.

With the tempers settling as well as the dust, apparently there were big time battles on McLoed street. This was pretty much a coffin nail of a game, our challenge may never recover from this one, we definitely need Celtic to slip some serious points over the next few weeks and if we don't watch out we will get sucked into a 2nd3rd4th playoff with Rangers and Hibs. But take note of this - there was absolutely nothing between the teams. Hearts were guilty of two things only, we should have scored at least one more in the first half and we really lost the plot after Fyassas left the park. There was a lot of talk of Hearts dropping deeper and deeper in the second half, this is not true, if anything i thought we could have dropped a bit deeper still and contained them, may not even have lost the first goal that way.

Falkirk

There was no post for the Boxing day demolition of Falkirk, as i phoned instead. Like politics a week is a very short time in football. Hearts were bloody brilliant and the talk was all about the upcoming 6 pointer against Celtic and what we were going to do to them.

I have allways hated Rangers

Originally sent on 18th December after what will hopefully be the lowest point of this season.

We're f&*cked !!
Wheels are off !! Hearts have gone into a shell and don't look like they can find a way out of it.
We are selling Hartley in the January window, supposedly buying a replacement from Liverpool but get this. He has been out all season with first a broken foot and now 2 broken vertebrae? He will not be fit until February but even then, can you see him putting it about in the maelstrom of a Scottish Premier league encounter.
Looks like the mallaise that has blighted Rangers season up to now, has virus like, transported itself to Tynecastle.
I am gutted and can't carry on like this - At least they didn't take us to the final game of the season before breaking our Hearts, but this is the first time since then that i have dared to consider the impossible and for that i hate the b&*tards.
We play Falkirk at Tynecastle on boxing day then Celtic again at home on New Years day, if nothing changes we will draw with Falkirk and take a hiding from Celtic. This will leave Celtic 11 points clear and sailing unchallenged to the title by the end of February.
I am not going to carry on as i am too dissappointed but perhaps the worst thing is that the new coach Rix doesn't even seem to be that bothered, he just seems to be accepting this as "alright because we put the effort in". Crap Rix ya pr*ck, we were brilliant and now we are shite and it is the same group of players so what would you like to say about that?

I will give you a bell on Boxing day after the Falkirk game ( will you be in ? ) let you know how things are going verbally. Although i am pretty sure you will have picked up my feelings on this season, i have been wearing my heart on my mails for a good while now.
Exhausted and defeated i am signing off.

lapsed believer
D

Dazed and Confused

Originally sent on 5th December

We're top o' the league and your no !!

Another ditty from the over excitable terraces at tynecastle. At the time of writing this and for a few hours anyroads, Hearts are once again setting the pace at the head of the SPL. Celtic travel to Aberdeen this afternoon to play their game in hand and a victory will take them ahead of Hearts by a point.
After two fairly dismal and just plain not good enough away draws, things have been looking decidedly ropey on this years title challenge. Celtic took the initiative and managed to scrape two points ahead of Hearts then inexplicably lost at home to bottom of the table Dunfermline. The Jambo's however could not capitalise on this by only scraping an ill earned draw away at Motherwell to bring them within a point. This was last week!

A hard earned point away to an Aberdeen side who were well up for a battle against Hearts two weeks ago was Graham Rix's first game in charge - i couldn't really argue with it because Aberdeen were getting stuck right into us coming away with a draw and no major injuries was about as good as we could have expected.
The draw away at Motherwell tho was a different kettle of fish. The English premiership is getting slated at the moment for being boring only one team in it and everyone plays 4-5-1. Rix sends out his charges at Fir park adopting this, less than optimistic formation. Just not good enough for a team supposed to be putting together a challenge. On top of this, our two main strikers are out injured and Rix completely drops the natural replacement ( he is not even on the bench ) Pospicil. He playes young Callum Elliot up front on his own. I have no idea what he was thinking - still in the honeymoon period or he would have been taken to task over that one. We go one down and at least Rix had the forethought to go back to 4-4-2 for the fight back. This is what, if it happens, will kill our challenge, too many away draws! We need to win these matches, we need to win all these matches.
Rix is by all accounts, considered in England to be an excellent coach, real top quality. His managerial pedigree is a bit of - not very good and not yet proven but it is fairly clear that he would have been in a better position in English management if it were not for his shady past ( this is the last time i will mention his shady past ). I am suspicious tho, the 4-5-1 nonsense leads me to be a bit worried about his tactical view of the world. It is early days but i don't think we can afford to fart about here, we can't allow a bad month or six weeks whilst he beds in his view point, whatever he does has to be on the hoof of a winning streak that lasts until May, right.
So on Saturday i witnessed something i have never seen before i am still confused and worried and want an answer. looks like no-one else saw it tho cos no one seems to be making any noises - get this
Hartley plays right centre midfield
Brellier plays left centre midfield
I saw these two swap positions everytime they found themselves on the wrong side of each other ( regardless of what was going on around them ) - Livi could have the ball be chasing through the midfield and Hartley/Brellier would be right there but would stop and swap places rather than make a challenge. The same thing happened if their full backs overlapped their midfield and our midfield tracked them. They could be getting ready to swing a cross over and just when we should be challenging our midfield and full back would swap over rather than make the necessary lunge. Got the impression that Rix was trying to force through some over complex tactics that the players just couldn't work out - maybe we will get there but the only reason livi did not make us pay on Saturday was because no one runs off the ball in that woefull 1st division outfit.
So Thank god for Rudi Skacel, two goals, the first a peach - collects the ball 40 yards out on the left, dances round two and spanks a shot into the opposite top corner of the net from 25 yards out. The second wasn't quite so fabulous but was equally clinical in execution.
I watched Rudi warm up before the game started, he hovered around outside the box and just slammed shot after shot with venom into the net - he broke the net as well during this tirade - i figured he was in the mood and it turned out so - these two goals came in the first 15 minutes. At that point for all the world we were on for 6 or 7, as it turned out that was it for us, plenty of chances to win this one 3 times over. A bit of bad finishing and bad luck it could have been over by half time. Livi scored a good goal on the hour mark and had a bizarre goal chalked off - a throw in on the left bounced around the penalty spot straight over Craig Gordon and into the net - apparently it did not touch anyone on it's trajectory and it needs to??
More chances to kill the game go begging so in the end we kind of hobbled to a 2 - 1 win.
Not too bothered by that more concerned about the weird tactical stuff going on.

Time has passed and Celtic won up in Aberdeen so go back to the top by 1 point, they come to Tynecastle on 1st January - looks like a seminal game at the halfway point to me - before that tho we have Inverness at tynecastle and then away to Ibrox. Ah Rangers, the high point of the season really - they are currently enduring their worst run in the whole of their 132 year history - it is hillarious and they are truly shite. This weekend they gave away a 2 - 0 lead at home to draw 2 - 2 with Falkirk. I just hope to god that their innevitable first step on the long road to recovery is not a gubbing of Hearts in a fortnight. By this Thursday they will have a new manager and 10M to spend on players when the transfer window opens in January.
Most talk in Hearts land about this transfer window is can we keep Rudi Skacel, not really in our hands, he is on loan from Marseille so all we could do is make an offer and hope it is good enough but everyone from Newcastle to Liverpool to Werder Bremmen and a clutch of Italian teams have been over watching him over the past few weeks. So if we manage to keep him i will be surprised and delighted. We will sign a couple of others but you only pull a gem like Skacel once a decade i think.