Mole not to blame for UEFA exit

THE questions which were asked in the aftermath of Hearts' elimination from the UEFA Cup on Thursday were still lingering in the air last night. The short- comings shown in the 0-0 second-leg draw with Sparta Prague remained unexplained.

Valdas Ivanauskas's positive spin on the 2-0 aggregate loss was that Hearts had now gone four games without losing, which was true enough. But that bold assertion was surely of little relevance compared to the fact that the SPL runners-up have now played six games in Europe between Champions League qualifiers and UEFA Cup, and have won only one.

Of course Ivanauskas and his squad were disappointed by the failure to beat Sparta which has denied them a crack at the group stages. Listening to the coach, however, it sounded as if he was actually pleased at having achieved a scoreless draw, as if it somehow signified something positive instead of merely meaning his team were out.

Looking at Ivanauskas's substitutions during the match could easily have led one to the same conclusion. Replacing Jamie Mole with Roman Bednar, a striker for a striker, was fine. But switching right-backs - Ibrahim Tall for Robbie Neilson - hardly reeked of high adventure, ditto midfielder Bruno Aguair's late cameo appearance in place of striker Mauricio Pinilla.

Lest such remarks be misinterpreted, we should say that of course Ivanauskas would have loved to have gone through to the group stages. It is just that, for a man who in his playing days had a reputation as a fearless striker, he went about it in a remarkably cautious fashion.

Ivanauskas did try to explain the substitutions at the post-match conference at the Toyota Stadium but the main thrust was the claim that everything would have been so different had a shot by Mole three minutes into the second half gone in instead of being saved. That suggestion was plausible in the sense that opening goals so soon after the restart often force the game into being more open and high-tempo, but it was unhelpful of Ivanauskas to single out the teenage striker.

After all, other chances fell to Hearts players, including Bednar and Saulius Mikoliunas. In one 90-second spell towards half-time, Deividas Cesnauskis had two chances to himself, blasting over and shooting wide.

How would the course of the match have been changed had the Lithuanian winger been on target even once? We will never know now, and yesterday Ivanauskas was unwilling even to discuss any missed opportunities other than Mole's.

Asked what he would say to those supporters who believed both Cesnauskis and Mikoliunas are well short of their best form, the coach was unwilling to do more than hint at impending improvement. "There is no point in naming or accusing specific players," he said, perhaps having realised that singling out Mole a day earlier would not have done wonders for his confidence.

"But I will say that some players are not performing as of old. Remember Cesnauskis before his illness. Believe it or not, he will be back to his old self very soon."

The virus which kept Cesnauskis out of action a few weeks ago may well have left him weakened, but in that case why is he not getting his match fitness back by playing in the reserves instead of being thrown into vital European ties? As for Mikoliunas, his problem has nothing to do with injury or illness. Instead, he is simply too slow to get round the full-back, and not strong enough to force his way through. He can impress at times domestically, but is adrift at a higher level.

The continued selection of those two, especially Mikoliunas, looks increasingly irrational, and so, even after we have had a day in which to contemplate it, does the introduction of Tall for Neilson.

Ivanauskas said Hearts had been forcing a number of corners and free-kicks, and that Tall was brought on because he scored following a dead-ball situation against Siroki Brijeg in the second round of the Champions League. That begs many questions.

First, Neilson, with his long throw-in, is also useful at dead-ball situations. What is more, Hearts were getting more free-kicks than corners. Second, just because a player scores from a certain situation in one match does not mean he will do so from the same situation in another. Football does not work like that.

Third, the fact that Tall scored against the Bosnians hardly makes him a marksman extraordinaire. In fact, most of his team-mates would have scored more easily from the same unmarked position - remember he fresh-aired his first attempt and was lucky to be given the time to get his second effort on target.

In sum, the introduction of Tall for Neilson looked like a superstitious act rather than a rational one. Of course, football is not a wholly rational pursuit but if you must have a last throw of the dice, it is preferable to bring a striker off the bench rather than a right-back.

And, if your wide men are not getting to the bye-line often enough, why not try the winger who is sitting on the bench? The man in question, Mirsad Beslija, would have given Hearts more pace, and Juho Makela, the unused striker, would have been more likely to score than Tall.

Ivanauskas accepted that mistakes had been made during the European campaign, but again did not want to say what they were. His general line when asked to explain the losses to AEK Athens and Sparta is that suspensions and injuries have denied the club some of their best players.

"We have a big squad, a good squad," he said. "However, key players such as Paul Hartley have had big injuries, and it's been hard to replace them. Now they're coming back to their usual form."

Hartley and others have indeed been missed but Hearts often seem bewildered by the embarrassment of riches available to them. If we compare the team which reached the group stages of the UEFA Cup two years ago, we will see that it was nowhere near as talented as the Hearts of this season have been even at their most depleted.

In other words, while Craig Levein meshed a small squad together and got them playing to their best on a number of occasions, Ivanauskas still has to learn the knack of selecting a coherent team which is more than the sum of its parts. The on-field leadership does what it can to maintain focus and morale, but there are still too many distractions off the field. As both players and coaching staff have said, a period of stability is needed.

In that respect, the best thing to have come out of this week has been the confirmation by Vladimir Romanov that Ivanauskas's job is safe. As detailed above, the coach has committed errors, but it is uncertain how many of them are of his own making. He can learn quickly, and the upside of his team's elimination from Europe is that domestic competition will be a less pressurised environment for him to do so.

Taken from the Scotsman