Lovell is all around us

Moira Gordon at Tynecastle

HEARTS 1 McKenna 59
DUNDEE 2 Lovell 26, 66

THERE’S no such thing as home comforts for Hearts these days. A side who were unbeaten on their own turf prior to last weekend’s defeat to Celtic, they followed that up with a second league loss on the trot there yesterday. On top of that there has been the unwanted headline-grabbing by a pocket of the home support, who probably now have more police and stewards monitoring their behaviour in the bottom corner of the main stand than are scattered around the entire rest off the ground.

But while Chris Robinson and the Hearts board will be concerned by the off-field nastiness, which mercifully was merely a rumbling yesterday, it is the foibles on the pitch that will pre-occupy Craig Levein today.

In a match which was absorbing as both sides went on the attack and play darted from one end of the pitch to the other, the fact that Hearts ended the game minus a share of the spoils was as much down to their own misgivings as it was to do with the team which Jim Duffy has honed into an entertaining but hard-working unit.

In a first half, in which scoring opportunities came knocking more often than even the keenest postman, Hearts still somehow contrived to go in at the break a goal down. Having failed to score in only one game this season, and that was against Rangers, statistics would suggest a team of goalgetters, but there are times when they make hard work of actually getting the breakthrough. Carving out a number of chances, it was as though there was a transparent wall in front of the opposition goal.

"I couldn’t be too critical of us going forward today because, on another day, we could have scored three or four, but certainly we were pretty naive defensively," said a disappointed Levein afterwards. "We did a lot of silly things in our own half, and put ourselves on the back foot."

A candid assessment of a side who should have been leading at half-time rather than trailing to a 25th-minute Steven Lovell header, which was an easy give after Fabian Caballero’s cross found the striker unmarked just a yard or so from goal after Alan Maybury had switched off.

It was a setback, but Hearts have come back from a goal down on several occasions this season, and the public-address announcer attempted to gee up the home support as the teams emerged after the break. "C’mon, how much do you want it, Jambos?" he bellowed, referring to the third-place slot that would be theirs should they manage to haul back the one-goal deficit and go on to take all three points.

The crowd roared the affirmative, and the players seemed to concur as they alternated between the battering-ram approach and the dexterity of little magicians like Jean Louis Valois as they battled to break past a resilient Dundee.

Time and again they got an effort on target only for the ball to run along the goal-line or ricochet off defenders, woodwork and goalkeeper like a pinball before being cleared or pounced upon by Julian Speroni.

Dundee, though, are a side transformed since the arrival of Jim Duffy. Consistent in their ability to grind out results, even if they have still to master the art of maintaining that equilibrium throughout 90 minutes, they are the type of pleasing blend of skilful individuals and boys who would run through a brick wall for a win. It’s when the flair men are asked to dig too deep or the grafters are fooled into thinking they too have some guile that the problems occur.

Against Levein’s men yesterday, they did produce a few heart-stopping moments, but having served up even more Hearts-stopping moments and ridden their luck, they left Edinburgh last night with their first away win and level on points with their disappointed hosts.

"I thought we showed a lot of movement and invention and we’ve got the work ethic as well," said the Dundee manager, pinpointing why there has been such a marked improvement in their fortunes since he took over. Another reason for their success are the Duffy tactics. Trusting in his back four, he demands a huge amount of effort from the three midfielders, who more often than not find themselves swamped numerically, but work so hard to minimise the impact, allowing the front three to terrorise opposition defences.

They certainly gave Hearts a torrid time in that department. At one stage, in the immediate aftermath of the first goal, it would be considered too kind to describe the home backline as being at sixes and sevens, so lost did they appear as Lovell, Nacho Novo and Caballero ran them ragged. Their jobs were hardly aided by the profligacy of the men up front, though.

It could have been very different had Hearts beaten Speroni earlier than the 59th minute, when Kevin McKenna levelled the scoreline. One reason they didn’t was Mark De Vries. His goals against Hibs early in the season have bought him some grace for games like this one, where sitters from a yard or two out are blazed over when it looked impossible to miss the target, and other chances are snatched at when a little more composure would surely have helped.

Hearts’ best chance, however, had come and gone in the 29th minute. An exquisite Valois free-kick rebounded off the bar, and although Stephen Simmons’ strike at the rebound looked netbound, it was halted by the post and squirmed along the goaline before Speroni managed to smother it.

But Dundee were the ones making the most of things. Under the cosh slightly as Hearts trumpeted a comeback, all it took was a lovely ball from Novo into the path of Lovel,l and it was as clinical as it was crucial, giving Dundee all three points.

For Hearts, though, it was an afternoon of missed opportunities, and when they look at the league table today, the fact they are not sitting third is the one they will rue the most.

Taken from the Scotsman