Defeat at Dens rounds off a week to forget

Dundee 1
Hearts 0

IT was a week which promised so much for Hearts but ultimately delivered very little.

It had been a week which chief executive Chris Robinson had been eagerly anticipating but one which he will now rather forget.

A place in the third round of the UEFA Cup beckoned last Thursday only for the Jambos to be sent crashing out of Europe against Bordeaux in front of their own fans in the Capital.

Less than 24 hours later, the Tynecastle board revealed the club’s perilous financial position meant the much-talked about move away from Gorgie would have to take place by next summer, Hearts having to sell their home to help alleviate a crippling debt which has spiralled to £17.6m.

While the exit from Europe was disappointing, the CIS Cup quarter-final meeting with Dundee at Dens Park at least offered the chance of boosting the coffers by a potential £250,000.

However, last night’s extra-time defeat against the Dark Blues - and it would be difficult to argue they didn’t deserve to lose - has left Robinson counting the cost of events over the past few days.

The lack of a lucrative third-round UEFA Cup tie combined with the Dens disappointment has seen Hearts miss out on a potential cash bonanza which could have raked in upwards of £1 million.

On the field, Craig Levein must now raise his players after tasting defeat for the third game in succession after Sunday’s unfortunate setback against Dundee United at Tannadice.

Facing Jim Duffy’s side on their own patch was always going to be a difficult match for the Jambos and they could have chosen a better time to travel to the City of Discovery.

The CIS Cup clash was crisis club Dundee’s first home game since going into administration with debts of £20 million and it was an emotion-charged evening with Duffy having spurned the advances of Partick Thistle and job security to stay in the Tayside hot seat with a determination to try to guide his side through this worrying period.

Levein had feared beforehand that his opponents’ plight could spur them on to great heights with a potentially lucrative semi-final berth up for grabs.

And the hosts certainly opened up as if their futures depended on the outcome of the game.

With Levein having made three changes to his Tannadice starting line-up - Phil Stamp and Paul Hartley were back in midfield, while Kevin McKenna was dropped to the bench in favour of versatile Australian Patrick Kisnorbo at centre half - the visitors found it difficult to get a grip on proceedings as Dundee came out of the blocks with all guns blazing.

Against United, Hearts must have wondered how they had gone in at half-time trailing and last night it was Duffy’s players who were left scratching their heads after failing to carve out an advantage in the opening 45 minutes.

A combination of fine defending from the impressive Andy Webster and some superb stops from young goalkeeper Craig Gordon kept the home side at bay.

While Hearts’ best efforts came from long range, Stamp’s drive too straight to trouble Julian Speroni and Hartley’s 25-yarder tipped over by the keeper, Dundee spurned a couple of glorious opportunities.

Gordon stood up well to deny Kevin Fotheringham at his near post in the ninth minute, saved bravely at the feet of Steve Lovell with 29 minutes gone and then produced his best stop of the tie to keep out Nacho Novo when the striker had been put through on goal by Jonay Hernandez.

The travelling Hearts fans who had braved the icy cold night were entitled to expect an improvement after the break and the players duly obliged.

Stamp curled a shot just wide shortly after the interval and then Mark de Vries, who had been passed fit just before kick-off, saw a powerful shot parried by Speroni with Stamp eventually firing wide from the attempted clearance.

As the game wore on it became clear that a single goal would be enough to settle the outcome and it was Hearts who came close in the final 14 minutes.

Andy Kirk did well to skip past Barry Smith and Lee Mair and the striker was all set to shoot past Speroni from 14 yards out when the ball took an untimely bobble and he blasted wildly off target.

And then just when it seemed as if extra time was inevitable, substitute McKenna was denied by a brilliant fingertip save from the Dens keeper after he got a head to Scott Severin’s cross in the dying seconds.

Extra time was probably the last thing which Levein needed after a gruelling schedule recently and it was the home side who snatched the advantage two minutes into the second period, local hero Robert Linn netting at the far post after Novo’s shot had come back off Gordon’s right-hand post, the keeper furious that no offside flag had been raised.

The setback must have taken what wind was left out of Hearts’ sails but to their credit they kept going and were almost rewarded with a dramatic leveller, Kisnorbo’s diving header from Jean-Louis Valois’ corner being cleared off the line by Hernandez.

"Obviously I am disappointed and I thought the game was in the balance for long periods, although the longer it went on the more comfortable I thought we looked," said Levein.

"It was one of those days when things didn’t go for us. The players worked extremely hard and I can’t say at any point that the heads went down. Dundee played well but we knew it was going to be difficult as their players knew a result could keep them in a job come January. They had the ascendancy early on but despite all our games recently we finished strongly. Maybe with what’s happened to Dundee recently they deserved a bit of luck but we’ll put that energy into most SPL games and win the majority of them."

Taken from the Scotsman