Hearts use escape clause

The Edinburgh side prepared for Thursday night’s Uefa Cup-tie against Sparta Prague by soaking up a series of dangerous attacks in a pulsating first-half that saw Aberdeen pull apart the visitors’ defence and test Craig Gordon, their Scotland international goalkeeper, several times as they made every effort to leapfrog their opponents in the table.

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It was the clinical finishing of the Tynecastle side, however, that made the big difference as they dismantled a previously solid opposition back four and left the Pittodrie men with nothing to show from their gargantuan effort.

There was further drama six minutes from the end as Mauricio Pinilla, who had earlier finished off a slick Hearts move to score his side’s second goal and was booked for the exuberance of his celebrations, was shown a second yellow card for kicking the ball away and thus found himself making a long walk to the dressing-room, leaving his team-mates a man down for the closing minutes of the game.

It was an incident that angered Valdas Ivanauskas, the Hearts head coach, who made it clear to Pinilla, on loan from Sporting Lisbon, that such behaviour was unacceptable, though he felt the referee had called it incorrectly when booking him for the goal celebrations.

Was it because he may have inflamed the home support by pointing at the boot that drilled in a low shot after a neat flick from Roman Bednar? Or had the referee objected to the rock-a-bye-baby style celebration? No one, it seems, knew for sure. Paul Hartley, the midfield player, took the view that, whatever the reason, it was both harsh and silly of the referee to show his team-mate a yellow card.

Ivanauskas was pleased with the overall performance of his side and praised the stoic nature of their play, particularly as they were pinned back for an hour, until the deadlock was broken. He praised Gordon, the man of the match, for several outstanding saves, and maintained that the discipline of his side was the key to their victory.

It was, by common consent, Aberdeen’s best performance of the season, a view backed by Jimmy Calderwood, their manager, who felt his team dominated the game until the opening goal. “They took a massive lift from that goal,” Calderwood said. “We pushed people forward after that and got caught with a couple of sucker punches. The first half was the best we have played all season and had we scored first we would have gone on to win, I’ m sure. I didn’t think there were two goals’ difference between the teams.”

Goals from Christophe Berra — a header at the back post in the 63rd minute from Hartley’s free kick — and Saulius Mikoliunas in the 82nd minute made the trip north worthwhile for the men from the capital.

If the Aberdeen game plan was that attack is the best form of defence, it looked to have paid off in a thrilling first half, although there was edginess in the home side’s defence in the 23rd minute when Lee Wallace’s explosive 35-yard strike was prevented from hitting the back of the net by the acrobatics of Jamie Langfield, the Aberdeen goalkeeper.

It was inevitable that the pace of the game would slow, and it did. There was no let-up, however, in the excitement generated by a plethora of goalmouth incidents and last-gasp blocks from defenders at each end. There were howls of protest from the Gorgie faction in the south stand as Richard Foster appeared to have pushed Hartley in the back inside the penalty area ten minutes after the interval.

It was, Hartley said afterwards, a definite penalty as he asserted he would not dive in such situations. “I wouldn’t go down for anything,” he added. “I am not a diver. I was right through and in front of Foster, who just clipped me. Sometimes you get these but I am not going to go down in the box easily when I have a chance to score a goal. I am not that type of player.”

Hartley and his team-mates now look ahead to that visit to Prague and took confidence from yesterday’s victory. “We have to go there and take the game to them and try to get two goals,” he said. “We know it is going to be hard and we go there as underdogs but if we can get an early goal then anything can happen and although we’ve been written off, there is a belief in the squad that we can go there and get a result.”

Berra’s goal was the beginning of the end for Aberdeen and when Pinilla fired the ball past Langfield after clever play from Mikoliunas and Bednar in the 77th minute, there was no coming back for the home side.

With eight minutes left, Mikoliunas placed the ball beautifully past the Aberdeen goalkeeper to silence the home support, though they were given something to cheer about in the 83rd minute when Dyron Daal, a Dutch amateur striker, who replaced Andrew Considine eight minutes earlier, produced a consolation goal.

Aberdeen (4-4-2): J Langfield 7 — M Hart 7, R Anderson 7, S Severin 7, A Considine 7 (sub: D Daal, 75min 7) — B Nicholson 8, G Dempsey 7, R Foster 7 (sub: R Byrne, 82), C Clark 7 — D Mackie 7, L Miller 7. Substitiutes not used: D Soutar, A Diamond, D Smith, K Macaulay, C Maguire. Booked: Severin.

Heart of Midlothian (4-4-2): C Gordon 9 — I Tall 6, S Pressley 7, C Berra 7, L Wallace 7 — S Mikoliunas 7, M Zaliukas 6 (sub: J Brellier, 78), P Hartley 7, N McCann 6 (sub: D Cesnauskis, 75) — R Bednar 8 (sub: J Makela, 89), M Pinilla 8. Substitutes not used: S Banks, R Neilson, B Aguar, D Cesnauskis, J Mole. Booked: Pressley, McCann, Zaliukas, Pinilla. Sent off: Pinilla. Daal 82

Referee: S Dougal 6. Attendance: 11,160

Taken from timesonline.co.uk