Dunfermline 1 - 2 Hearts

A group of Greek journalists were spying on Hearts and you wondered what they made of this stereotypically Scottish scrap; their dispatches will have made encouraging reading for AEK supporters.

Hearts' opponents in the third Champions League qualifying round – assuming of course a three-goal lead against Siroki Brijeg is not squandered in Bosnia on Wednesday night – will feel confident they can cope with Valdas Ivanauskas' side on this showing.
Without the injured Paul Hartley and the transferred Rudi Skacel, Hearts are badly missing a creative force.
Neil McCann, after all his injuries, does not yet appear the same player he was in his first spell at Tynecastle, while Deividas Cesnauskis and Saulius Mikoliunas are frustratingly inconsistent.
Ivanauskas expects to redirect some of the £1.6m Southampton paid for Skacel this week, completing a deal for PAOK Salonika defender Hristos Karipidis. A replacement for Skacel should also be a priority ahead of the AEK game.

The Greek season does not begin until late August, so Hearts will be AEK's first competitive match. With a new manager – Lorenc Serra Ferrer – and new signings to be bedded in, Hearts could be facing the Greeks at the perfect time.

They will certainly be battle-hardened, if their next Premierleague game is anything like this. The words "blood" and indeed "thunder" did spring to mind, especially in a second half that soon reached boiling point and stayed bubbling away until the end.
Referee Brian Winter was to blame for letting the game get out of hand. After ignoring a number of fouls early in the game (how did Julien Brellier last until the 73rd minute before getting the first of what will be many, many bookings this season?) he attempted to regain a grip on the match by showing cards with abandon.

Brellier, Hearts' homme du hatchet, was as always at the centre of most of the unnecessary roughness. Every time a visiting player hit the grass, Dunfermline players and supporters claimed it was a dive, but in truth, Hearts were generally honest and restrained.
For example, Brellier was widely castigated for "getting Andy Tod sent off" in the 80th minute. Actually, Tod's boot was high, his studs were showing and he deserved to receive a second yellow card.

Craig Robertson, the Dunfermline assistant manager, was also sent off for his furious, presumably expletive-laden, response to the incident. Jim Leishman's insistence that his No.2 had merely been shouting across to his pal John McGlynn in the other dugout to debate the matter didn't quite wash.

Dunfermline fought hard to get back into the match after going a goal down in the 13th minute. Roddy McKenzie, their new goalkeeper, had made an excellent save moments earlier from Roman Bednar, but then came rushing wildly off his line as Michal Pospisil bore down on him from the left wing. He crossed for his fellow Czech Bednar to tap in, but the whipping was not forthcoming.

Stephen Simmons' header from a Scott Muirhead corner was somehow kicked by Bruno Aguiar over his own head and into the net to put Dunfermline back in it in the 62nd minute.
Shortly afterwards came the turning point of the game, when Freddie Daquin found himself one-on-one against Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon, but inexplicably chose to take the ball around him to the right and away from goal rather than to the left.
Pospisil sealed the win in the 78th minute, sclaffing in from close range after Aguiar's free-kick came off the bar.


The result was fair but Dunfermline, relegation favourites for many, can take encouragement from their performance and the fact that Leishman seems to have made some decent new signings. Sol Bamba, a powerful African defender, looked raw but talented while Simmons and Phil McGuire stiffened the midfield.
The problem, as ever, is injuries. Missing half a squad before the first ball of the season had been kicked, Dunfermline lost another player, Noel Whelan, after just five minutes.

Taken from the Herald