HEARTS WIN NOTHING TO BRAGA ABOUT

A first-half strike from Paul Hartley turned out to be enough to earn the Jambos a 1-0 win at bottom club Caley's expense.

It was achieved in spite of a number of absentees through injury, with strikers Mark de Vries and Ramon Pereira missing and Kevin McKenna, the defender who is often thrown up front, also absent.

Hearts take a 3-1 first leg lead to Braga later in the week, with the Jambos 90 minutes away from a place in the UEFA Cup's new group stage.

Levein admitted: "We were poor. We didn't pass the ball well. We had too many players who did not perform to the best of their ability.

"But we won the match. We only have five strikers and four of them were injured. We are just hoping we can get some of them back for Thursday as the strength of our strikers has to be better than it was today to give us a chance."

De Vries is all but certain to miss out because of a foot injury but is set to travel anyway.

Levein said: "We will probably take him with us to see if we can get him on the bench."

Pereira is rated as the most likely to make a timely comeback for a team that suffered more injury setbacks during the game.

Skipper Steven Pressley was left with a bloodied face following a collision and is not yet fully recovered from a virus.

Jamie McAllister also took a blow to the back but both are expected to be available in Portugal.

Levein also admitted that Caley had made it as difficult as possible for his side.

He said: "Inverness played to their strengths and they put us under pressure. They were very well-organised, as I expected.

"No disrespect, but I think that with the players they have that's the way they have to play and they did themselves proud."

Caley boss John Robertson, who was a prolific scorer as a Hearts player, was left disappointed once again.

He said: "We are a good, honest team. We are organised, we are fit and play some nice football but we have to find an end product.

"We had a lot of possession and out-played Hearts at times but at the end of it all you have got to finish off something.

"We made one mistake and it cost us a goal but when other teams make mistakes it doesn't fall for us. We need a break, there is absolutely no doubt about that at all."

Taken from sportinglife.com