Hearts take the Michal in Fife

DUNFERMLINE 1-4 HEARTS

ANDREW SMITH
AT EAST END PARK

IT WOULD be easy to nit-pick and say that, even if the scoreline from East End Park might recall those magical early months of the season for Hearts, yesterday the Tynecastle men didn't always show the sort of command that was then their forte. Ultimately though, their Fife showing wasn't far short of their best displays during those heady days - right down to the showboating with which they concluded the afternoon.

Dunfermline gave their opponents a minor bout of the wobbles when Mark Burchill reduced the deficit to 2-1 only two minutes after Michal Pospisil had appeared to have killed off the resistance of Jim Leishman's men. But any prospect of a home comeback was snuffed out by the Czech's second and Hearts' third ten minutes later, allowing the Edinburgh team to gallop towards a first away league win since winning at Inverness on September 17. With squad bolstering continuing apace down Gorgie way, Vladimir Romanov's Scottish football project could yet end with his supposedly put-upon team in the Champions League next season.

Graham Rix positively cooed over the display of his side and took particular relish in the double from Pospisil, a player reported to have taken the huff over being fourth in the club's striking pecking order. With Edgaras Jankauskas and Roman Bednar sidelined by injury yesterday, the bit-part performer made the most of being thrust centre stage.

"A big thing was made about a rift between Michal and me but nothing could be further from the truth," said Rix, emboldened by his third win in four games. "Believe me, and Miko [Saulius Mikoliunas] was a witness to this, I said to Michal, 'You are going to score today'." The prediction was confirmed by Pospisil himself, who said his manager told him: "I smell a goal from you".

The aroma around the entire Hearts operation is beginning to have a fragrancy about it again. Like the Old Firm, the Tynecastle club have the capacity to make opponents feel inferior just at the very thought of the level at which they are operating. Regardless of who they were playing, second-bottom Dunfermline would have approached a home game yesterday full of trepidation. There could be no other way after they contrived to chuck away a two-goal lead in losing 4-3 to Airdrie United in the Scottish Cup a week earlier.

But that their visitors happened to be the Tynecastle side would only have strengthened feelings of unease. Not for the fact that they are the only serious challengers to Celtic for the Premierleague title but because they have been constantly in the papers this week, with signings actual and signings possible. The one to capture the imagination has been Neil McCann. The 31-year-old is expected to pen a two-and-a-half year deal to return to the club he helped to a Scottish Cup triumph in 1998.

"There are still one or two details to be ironed out," Rix said of the move. "A couple of Premiership clubs are after him but I am confident that in the next couple of days everything will be sorted. Until it is 100%, I don't want to tempt fate. They way we played today he might struggle to get into the team."

Plenty scoffed when Rix opened his transfer window deals with a £60,000 purchase of Yeovil's Lee Johnson and a loan arrangement that brought Lithuanian utility player Nerijus Barasa from de facto feeder club FBK Kaunas. These two debuted from the bench in Fife. But if, in the next few days, McCann arrives, Hearts tie-up a £850,000 deal with Racing Genk of Belgium for Bosnian winger Mirsad Belija and land a couple more of the "exciting targets" Rix has spoken of, then their status as the most hungry Scotland club in 2006 will be unquestionable. In Paul Hartley, watched by Wolves manager Glenn Hoddle yesterday, Steven Pressley and Skacel they have pivotal figures who continue to show the appetite to chase down league leaders Celtic.

They took a little time to warm up against Leishman's men. Midway through the first period, indeed, the home side could have put the cat among the pigeons after Craig Gordon released the ball to prevent himself sliding out of the area with it. The keeper only succeeded in setting up Burchill and after his first effort was blocked, only a back-tracking Pressley prevented the striker's second attempt heading into the goal.

A hitherto tame encounter then burst to life. And in his 300th appearance for the club, it was Pressley who earned Rix's men a 39th minute lead. He did so by turning a Calum Elliot shot over the line from close range after the forward had met a Hartley free-kick at the back post. Bizarrely, it led to a booking for Elliot, with the impudent youth battering the ball against the prostrate keeper in celebration.

The moment Pospisil doubled Hearts' advantage in the 55th, neatly squeezing a low drive beyond the Dunfermline keeper from a Robbie Neilson cut-back after a slick move involving Mikoliunas, the entire home side seemed down. Yet, they quickly sprang up after Burchill nipped in behind the Hearts backline to fasten on to a high through ball before applying a messy finish.

There was nothing messy about Pospisil's simple header from a Hartley free-kick immediately after, however. It caused the home supporters to lose voices they had found when Andy Tod had the ball in the net only for the strike to be disallowed in the moments before they found themselves 3-1 down. A neat diagonal pass from Brellier then allowed Skacel to complete the scoring, Leishman was sanguine about being "beaten by the better team". He was right: in full flow yesterday, Hearts looked the equal of any team in Scotland.

Taken from the Scotsman