Take your pick

When it comes to choosing a fantasy XI, Hearts players are suddenly in the reckoning says Michael Grant

FANTASY football isn’t as straightforward as it used to be. In recent seasons anyone who indulged in the harmless fun of picking their “select” team of the best players in the SPL hardly had to bother diverting their attention from Glasgow. Any composite team of the finest talents in Scottish football would be made up almost entirely of Celtic and Rangers players. Not now.

It is possible that by May, Hearts’ aspirations to be league champions will have been exposed as a pipe dream, their squad proving manager George Burley’s point that the Old Firm’s greater resources are likely to be crucial over the course of a 38-game season. But squad depth and potential signings between now and the end of the season are irrelevant to those prepared to entertain themselves by picking the best 11 from the current players at the Old Firm and Hearts. This is hardly a scientific exercise, but it does underline just how many Hearts players can now be advanced as being superior to their counterparts at the Old Firm.

No two supporters are likely to agree – as the composite teams selected by four of the Sunday Herald’s writers demonstrate – but it is impossible to dismiss the case for Craig Gordon, Steven Pressley, Andy Webster, Takis Fyssas, Rudi Skacel, Paul Hartley and Edgaras Jankauskas without serious contemplation. Could anyone other than the most passionate Parkhead season ticket holder make a similarly persuasive case for seven current Celtic players?

The fact that Alex McLeish and Gordon Strachan considered signing Webster and Hartley respectively, before pursuing alternative options, might suggest that the Old Firm now have superior versions of the defender and the midfielder. But since when did the Rangers and Celtic managers’ judgement become flawless?

The Old Firm enjoy profound financial advantages over Hearts but there has been a narrowing of the gap, which places greater emphasis on subjective judgments. Only one of the three managers, Burley, has risen to the level of being voted English manager of the year. Quite simply Burley – or should that be Vladimir Romanov? – may have a better eye for a player than the pair in charge in Glasgow.

When Burley brought a left-back he landed Fyssas, a Euro 2004 champion. When Strachan went for one he got Mo Camara, a journeyman from Burnley. Try finding a Hearts supporter who would swap their club’s new left-sided midfielder, the goal-a-game Skacel, for Rangers’ new one, Ian Murray.

“There would be a fair number of Hearts players in there if you were picking a team right now,” said Billy Stark, a member of the Aberdeen side who eclipsed the Old Firm in the 1980s before becoming a Celtic player and assistant manager. “There is a real case for up to five or six of them.

“Look at the Celtic players. John Hartson has been on the goal trail but maybe not playing that well. They have had to change goalkeepers and they have problems across the back four. Stilian Petrov would make it into any team but Neil Lennon and Alan Thompson have had their problems.

“At Rangers, Dado Prso has been tremendous but defensively they’ve had their problems as well. In goal there’s not much to choose between Ronald Waterreus and Gordon.”

Stark is manager of Queen’s Park and before they played Hearts in the CIS Insurance Cup last month he asked his assistant, Bobby Dickson, to watch them at Dundee United. Eight goals in their previous two games prompted a sea of Hearts fans to make the journey to Tannadice. It was as the players came out for their pre-match warm-up that Dickson noticed how taken aback they seemed to be by the consequences of their thrilling start to the season.

“He saw the players come out and be confronted by their own travelling support,” said Stark. “They were quite visibly lifted by it. And surprised too. It was as if even they were realising the club’s potential.

“When was the last time a club outwith the Old Firm won the first five games of the season? That’s utopia. When they played us they kept in Gordon, Webster and Jankauskas but they rested others and brought back the likes of Stephen Simmons, Lee Wallace and Neil MacFarlane – players who had been good enough to get them into Europe the season before last. It was the kind of way the Old Firm would have approached the tie and they won 2-0.”

Such is the exuberance at Hearts at the moment that some fans seem to think they are capable of alchemy. Having introduced Skacel, Fyssas and Jankauskas there is a presumption that anyone else they sign will be class acts too. What would McLeish and Strachan give for that sort of blind faith?

Rangers signed a quartet of established players in Francis Jeffers, Olivier Bernard, Filippo Maniero and Sotirios Kyrgiakos last week and their fans seemed totally underwhelmed. Imagine for a moment how serious Hearts’ title challenge would seem if they had signed the same four names, and how their fans would have reacted. It is one Romanov and Burley’s revealing achievements that for the time being their signings are assumed to be excellent while the Old Firm’s are assumed to be flawed.

“I don’t think it’s impossible for Hearts to challenge this season,” said Stark. “Rangers are in the Champions League and that could drain their resources domestically, while this could be a transitional season for Celtic. There are circumstances which are outwith Hearts’ control but which could fall for them this season.”

The point was echoed by someone who spent eight years analysing the Old Firm, Hearts and the rest with a view to picking the best players available, albeit only the Scottish ones. Former international manager Craig Brown identified one of Hearts’ new arrivals as being particularly revealing in terms of the substance of the squad being assembled at Tynecastle.

“You look at a signing like Fyssas and you have to say that’s a major, major coup,” Brown said. “He’s won the European Championship with Greece only last year. That’s a major signing.

“The other point which interests me is that for all the attention on their signings, people are saying Hearts’ best players are Gordon, Pressley, Webster and Hartley – four Scottish internationals. You look at Celtic and they don’t have four international Scots. Or Rangers. Look at the goalkeeper: you would have to say Gordon is as good as Waterreus. Webster and Pressley: you’re not going to tell me the Old Firm have better central defenders than them?”

In 1997-98, the season they won the Scottish Cup, Hearts also mounted a vigorous league campaign. As late as March they were still on the Old Firm’s coat-tails and came away from Parkhead with a 0-0 draw. Eventually they ran out of steam – Rangers won 3-0 at Tynecastle the following month – and finished third, five points behind Rangers and seven behind Celtic.

A senior figure in their team at the time, Dave McPherson, knew why they narrowly failed to last the course. “When we were challenging, our resources were limited. That takes its toll halfway through the season because Rangers and Celtic are able to sign again and take in fresh legs. If Hearts can do that this season that will be a major factor in their league challenge. And it does seem to be the case that if Hearts are still in contention in December that Burley will be able to go to Romanov and make the case for further strengthening.”

So far this season has begun like a fantasy for Hearts. Maybe in January they will bid for Petrov and Prso, and try to find a place for them.

Taken from the Sunday Herald