Jambos rid Gorgie of winter blues

PAUL KIDDIE
AT TYNECASTLE

Wyness, 61 (pen)

HEARTS will be hoping the month of February proves just as successful as January.

The start of a new year can often be depressing for people as they try to chase off the winter blues but there will be no such feelings of despondency in Gorgie at the moment.

This month has seen a depleted Hearts squad undertake the most taxing of schedules yet emerge unbeaten after seven matches.

Over the past few seasons, the Jambos have been much stronger in the second half of the season and the opening to 2005 has seen a continuation of that trend, the weekend victory over Aberdeen maintaining their encouraging recent progress.

John Robertson’s men have made light of their fixture congestion to re-ignite their challenge for third place, a CIS Cup semi-final showdown with Motherwell awaits tomorrow and Saturday sees a home tie against Kilmarnock with a place in the quarter-final of the Tennent’s Scottish Cup at stake.

Just last week, the Tynecastle side were a mammoth 11 points behind third-placed Hibs but after sneaking a win over Livingston on Tuesday in a rearranged league meeting at Almondvale, they followed up with the 1-0 triumph over the Dons to significantly enhance their position.

With the Easter Road side inactive on Saturday having seen their clash at Fir Park unexpectedly postponed, Hearts took full advantage to reduce that deficit to just five points, albeit with now one more game played than the Hibees.

The points were secured against Aberdeen courtesy of Dennis Wyness’ 61st-minute penalty, the hard-fought win seeing the hosts leapfrog their opponents into fourth place.

The recent upturn in results, if not performances, has been achieved against the now familiar backdrop of the uncertainty surrounding the protracted takeover bid by Vladimir Romanov. The Lithuanian, who watched his first game at Tynecastle at the weekend, is expected to finally complete his purchase of Chris Robinson’s 19.6 per cent stake in the club later this week.

In addition, there has also been the distraction of Celtic’s cut-price bid to lure in-form Paul Hartley to Parkhead, the injured midfielder’s darting runs and goal threat sorely missed by the home side on Saturday as they struggled to break down a determined Dons side.

Recent games have been marked by a distinct lack of cutting edge to the Jambos’ displays and after a turgid opening period between two evenly matched sides at Tynecastle, it appeared another tale of woe was in the pipeline.

However, things brightened up considerably after the break as Lithuanian Saulius Mikoliunas began to make more of an impression on his first start for the club and Lee Miller and Dennis Wyness gave further evidence that they could yet form a decent partnership in attack.

It was the latter, who had earlier hit the bar with a superb overhead kick, who bagged the only goal of the game, his spot-kick just after the hour mark enough to send the visitors on the long journey back to the Granite City empty handed.

The penalty award, after Noel Whelan sent Steven Pressley tumbling in the box as he tried to force his way down the right-hand side of the area, sparked fury in the Dons camp with half-a-dozen players swarming round referee Mike McCurry in protest. They claimed the home skipper had dived to win the award but Whelan should have known better than to make an ill-advised challenge with Pressley going nowhere.

With regular penalty taker Hartley sidelined by a reported hamstring injury, Wyness assumed the responsibility and after what must have seemed like an eternity as Aberdeen continued their complaints to McCurry, the former Don stepped up to coolly send Ryan Esson the wrong way.

His tangle with Elvis had left Whelan all shook up and the furious striker, already on a yellow card, had to be immediately substituted by boss Jimmy Calderwood before he sought some form of retribution on the Scotland stopper.

The striker was still raging afterwards and launched an astonishing verbal broadside at Pressley, branding him a "cheat" and a "coward" in an attack which is sure to land him in trouble with the authorities.

"I know Noel wasn’t happy with the decision but he pushed me in the back," said the Gorgie star.

"I thought it was a penalty, Dennis had the confidence to take it and over the 90 minutes I thought we deserved to win the game."

Eight minutes later and Hearts should have had a second penalty, this time Stephen Simmons appearing to be fouled by Jamie Winter as he surged into the box. McCurry hesitated before waving play on and it wasn’t the last of the controversy.

Steven Craig had a great chance to level things in the 73rd minute after being set up by Winter but Craig Gordon denied the substitute with an excellent save.

The Dons replacement came even closer six minutes from time when an offside flag came to the hosts’ rescue.

Michael Hart’s delightful chip from the edge of the area was tipped onto the back post by Gordon and Craig’s close-range finish from the rebound sparked scenes of celebration in the Aberdeen dug out and among the large travelling support.

No-one had noticed, though, that assistant referee Martin Cryans had raised his flag as Craig pounced.

Calderwood, who has yet to taste victory as a manager at Tynecastle, was in no mood for hard-luck stories.

"The only man in the whole stadium who didn’t think it was a goal had his flag up," he said.

"I don’t think he’d have done it at the other end. It was unbelievable and a real kick in the teeth after we’d battled away."

His opposite number was understandably delighted at the outcome.

"Aberdeen may have a grievance over the equaliser they thought they had scored but we asked the assistant referee about it and he said two players were offside when Michael Hart tried to chip Craig Gordon," said Robertson.

"Craig touched it onto the bar and when the ball came back that’s why he put his flag up as they had gained an unfair advantage.

"It was a good call. If the ball had gone in the net, he would have given a goal.

"You get breaks in football but over the 90 minutes I thought we deserved that.

"I thought we were the better team, passed the ball really well and created the better chances.

"It was a big win for us and took us above Aberdeen in the league.

"We keep hearing people say we have had a poor season and a bad run of results but we have gone through January unbeaten and our last defeat was against Celtic on Boxing Day.

"If that is a crisis, we’ll take it. Now we have another massive game to look forward to against Motherwell at Easter Road."

Taken from the Scotsman