Hearts 3 - 0 Dundee United

ROB ROBERTSON at Tynecastle November 07 2005

IT was Saturday evening that Hearts supporters first heard the name of Graham Rix being mentioned as their possible new head coach. "It should be Brian Rix rather than Graham Rix they appoint as events at this club have turned into such a farce," said one irate season ticket-holder when he heard the news.

Certainly, the appointment of a convicted sex offender as head coach at a club owned by a Lithuanian multi-millionaire, who has been accused of being a megalomanic by a member of the House of Lords, is something that even the most imaginative script-writers could not have created.

It says a lot for the Hearts players that they have ignored the west end of Edinburgh farce and got on with the job at hand. On Saturday, under the watchful eye of temporary head coach John McGlynn, who deserves great credit for out-smarting Gordon Chisholm tactically, they outplayed Dundee United.

Goals from Paul Hartley, Rudi Skacel and Michal Pospisil gave them a deserved victory and with 14 games played they have only lost once, in the derby match against Hibernian. To make matters worse for United, winger Barry Robson also missed a penalty in the 66th minute when Hearts keeper Craig Gordon produced a superb save.

It was an impressive display by Hearts with their supporters giving Vladimir Romanov, the club's biggest single shareholder, a supportive rather than rousing reception from the terraces. Indeed, their hate figure on the day was Andy Walker, the television pundit, who believes the Tynecastle outfit won't win the league. The capacity crowd of 16,617 turned on him time and time again, which would have made programme makers at Scottish Television smile. After all, who down Tynecastle way can now say they don't watch Scotsport?

On the park, Hearts kept the fans happy with an assured display and now McGlynn will surely be retained at Tynecastle regardless who takes over, as he has the respect of the players. On the advice of captain Steven Pressley, McGlynn let a tape of actor Al Pacino making a motivational speech from the film 'Any Given Sunday' be played in the dressing room before kick-off and it helped inspire them to victory.

One man who must be smiling all over his face just now is Frenchman Julien Brellier. Romanov infamously asked former manager George Burley why he played him, as he felt he wasn't good enough to merit a place in the side.

McGlynn, though, had the guts to retain the midfielder and the way he played suggests that both the interim coach and Burley know far more than Romanov ever could about football. The Frenchman plays a solid, unspectacular role, but he is vital to Hearts' success. He is the conduit between defence and attack and his ability to track back allows both Hartley and Skacel the freedom to move forward and support the strikers.

Gordon's splendid penalty save from Robson showed that the Tynecastle outfit won't lose many goals this season and even the much-maligned right back, Robbie Neilson, is having a season he can be proud of. Up front, young Calum Elliot put in a good shift alongside Pospisil and it was good to see six Scots in the Edinburgh outfit's league of nations.

Whoever takes over at Tynecastle, be it Rix, Nevio Scala, Gianluca Vialli or Sir Bobby Robson, will inherit a squad of experience players who take the off-field chaos in their stride.

"Such changes at football clubs are usual in other countries I have played in, like Greece and Portugal," said Takis Fyssas, the Greek international defender. "I have spoken to the guys and told them to remain focused, and that is what they have done."

From a Dundee United viewpoint, owner Eddie Thompson must be running out of patience with Chisholm and his under-performing players. They played a rather confusing 4-2-3-1 formation with quality strikers on the park who could not hit a barn door.

Can it be less than a year since Lee Miller was being courted by both Hearts and Aberdeen before United came in with a big-money bid for his signature? Back then he was in the Scotland squad, but he has since lost his place as the form of both he and the Tannadice outfit has taken a concerning turn for the worse.

Chisholm, whose side look likely to remain in the bottom six until the end of the season unless they improve quickly, at least accepted that his team had lost their shape and did not follow their game plan.

"There have been one or two things happening at Tynecastle and we thought, if we could frustrate them for 20 minutes, then the crowd might just go against them," said Chisholm. "However, for us to lose a goal after just four minutes was really bad.

"I was really disappointed in the way we lost the second goal from the free-kick, because of the angle it was taken at, and it went straight in through the defence. We gave away the third goal with a careless clearance and overall didn't play well."

Taken from the Herald