ROBERTSON SETS FOURTH-PLACE TARGET

Hearts head coach John Robertson insists his team's season is far from over despite a goalless draw with Motherwell ending their chances of winning a UEFA Cup place.

As the Jambos struggled to contain a lively Motherwell side who missed a first-half penalty through Richie Foran, rivals Hibernian were pulling off a shock win at Celtic to all but make their third place secure.

Aberdeen, who occupy fourth spot, can still catch Tony Mowbray's side, but fifth-placed Hearts now trail the Leith club by 10 points with three games remaining.

They must reconcile themselves with the fact they will miss out on a European adventure for the first time in three years.

But Robertson insists his players will not be freewheeling until the end of the season.

He said: "We want to win every game and we won't be giving up, there's still lots to play for.

"We can still maybe catch Aberdeen and want to try and finish as far up the table as possible.

"I thought we played well, our passing movements and link-up play was excellent, the only thing that let us down was the final pass at times.

"We had people in great positions and we just over-hit it or put it behind them and when we did get the quality, we ran into Gordon Marshall.

"A lot of teams struggle against Motherwell. They play at a high tempo, they close the game down very quickly in midfield and they make you hurry your passes.

"But we did what we had to do, we got in behind them but you've got to take your chances."

Motherwell manager Terry Butcher watched his side maintain their hold over Hearts this season.

In the three previous SPL games and a CIS Insurance Cup semi-final, the Steelmen had come out on top, and the Fir Park boss insists they deserved to make it five wins in a row.

Butcher said: "Hearts haven't scored a goal against us in the league this season. That's four clean sheets and we're rightly proud of that.

"We're disappointed that it was goalless, we had chances in the second half.

"I think only one goal was going to win it and it was end-to-end stuff.

"It wasn't the prettiest of games but we are just delighted with the way we battled and scrapped and tried to pass the ball."

Taken from sportinglife.com