Frustrated Levein left to rue another defeat

DUNFERMLINE 2-1 HEARTS

Mark Bonthrone

IT was a rather bemused looking Craig Levein who entered the post-match press conference on Saturday, the Hearts boss still trying to work out just how his side were leaving East End Park having lost 2-1 to Dunfermline.

His first words were to joke that such was his luck at the moment that he wouldn’t be wasting his money on a lottery ticket and given the 90 minutes of football he had just watched it was difficult to disagree with his sentiment.

Lady luck seemed to contrive against the Gorgie side at almost every opportunity as they dominated proceedings against the Pars yet left Fife with nothing to show for their efforts.

The Jambos have now lost the last four games on the trot and been knocked out of two cup competitions in the process, yet their displays have not visibly dipped from the run of games prior to Bordeaux’s visit to the Capital when they won six games in succession. If anything, Saturday’s clash with Jimmy Calderwood’s men was one of Hearts’ best displays of the season yet, as was the case at Dundee United six days earlier, they just couldn’t convert their dominance into goals.

Derek Young had put the home side in front midway through the first half with a cleverly-worked strike, but from the moment Alan Maybury got Hearts back on level terms there only ever looked like there would be one winner. That wasn’t the case, though, and as the visitors pushed for a winning goal they were hit on the counter-attack as Scott Wilson capitalised on slack marking to seal all three points.

Levein, however, refused to panic, insisting he is still pleased with the way his players are performing.

"You play well, create chances yet end up losing and it’s hard to take sometimes," he said. "Luck is a small word but it can mean a lot sometimes and I just don’t think we got the breaks.

"It’s a poor run of results at the moment but I don’t think it’s a poor run of form. In fact I think the players deserve credit for the way that they played. We just didn’t take our chances and suffered when Dunfermline got opportunities. Apart from the goals, though, I really don’t remember us being under an awful lot of pressure.

"The period we are going through just now is possibly something that other teams have gone through already or will go through in the months to come and we just have to try and get through it.

"I’m not too downhearted at the moment because we are still playing well. I thought all the players were great and I could go right through the whole team and talk about them all. We just lacked a bit of luck."

That sentiment was echoed by Pars boss Calderwood who conceded that his side had been fortunate to pick up maximum points.

He said: "The result probably flattered us. I thought a draw would probably have been a fair result but we managed to get the luck and win the game and I’m delighted."

In the absence of regular strike pairing Mark de Vries and Andy Kirk the Jambos started with Graham Weir and emergency forward Kevin McKenna in attack with Andy Webster stepping into McKenna’s defensive role.

And in the opening stages it looked as though the move would pay off with the aerial ability of McKenna and the eagerness of Weir causing the Pars all kinds of problems.

It was the former who almost opened the scoring for the afternoon with just eight minutes on the clock when he controlled a Scott Severin pass on his chest, spun his marker on the edge of the area and drilled a low 20-yard effort towards goal that Derek Stillie did well to save.

Three minutes later and the Tynecastle men were reminded of the threat Craig Brewster and Stevie Crawford pose when the latter cleverly stepped over a Young cross allowing Brewster to fire in a shot from 12 yards that had Craig Gordon beaten, only to shave the post and go wide.

And it was the combination of Brewster and Crawford midway through the half that carved open the Jambos defence for Young to open the scoring.

Brewster beat Webster to a high ball flicking it into the path of Crawford who cleverly back-heeled it into the stride of Young who drove an unstoppable effort beyond Gordon from 14 yards to give the Pars the lead.

The advantage was shortlived, however, as Maybury claimed a rare goal. The Republic of Ireland internationalist doesn’t score many but when he does they tend to be worth waiting for and this one was no exception.

The Dunfermline defence failed to pick him up on the edge of the area when Hearts were awarded a free-kick and Paul Hartley was able to roll the ball into his path 25 yards from goal from where he was able to pick his spot in the bottom corner, just out of the reach of Stillie.

The game wasn’t allowed to flow by referee Charlie Richmond who infuriated both sets of supporters with a string of bizarre decisions and his seeming unwillingness to use the advantage rule.

Both sides, to their credit, continued to try and play football and contributed to an entertaining match despite the official’s best efforts to spoil it by pulling players up for every little offence. On one of the rare occasions when he did play the advantage rule Hearts could and should have fired themselves in front.

Severin was caught late as he played a defence splitting 40 yard pass to Weir but rather than bringing play back the game was allowed to continue with Weir racing in on goal only to see his 14-yard effort turned round the post by Stillie. The pint-sized striker did have to fend off the attentions of Wilson as he shaped to shoot, but despite this he should have scored. That miss was to prove very costly just after the hour when, for the first time in the game, the Hearts defence went to sleep allowing Wilson to ghost into the box to bullet home a Young free-kick from six yards. The goal was a bitter blow to the visitors but their bad luck didn’t end there when Maybury saw his seemingly netbound half volley from the edge of the area come crashing back off the crossbar.

The Capital club threw everything at their opponents in the closing stages playing with four up front in the final ten minutes, but despite winning several corners and coming close through a Severin effort they were unable to get the equaliser their play deserved.

Taken from the Scotsman