Hearts find the flaws

Barely a voice could be found in support of Malkowski after the dust settled. The Pole was blamed by the caretaker manager, Mark Venus, who is poised to join Mowbray at West Bromwich Albion, and his team-mates for the mistakes that gifted Andrius Velicka two goals and wiped out what looked like being an impressive first day in life after Mowbray.

Hibernian were two up after just 15 minutes, thanks to Merouane Zemmama and Scott Brown, but once Malkowski blundered to present Velicka with a goal before half-time, the Lithuanian striker then struck an equaliser with 19 minutes left.

Hearts were already numerically disadvantaged with the dismissal of Saulius Mikoliunas just before the hour for his second yellow card in a contest littered with nine cautions. The Lithuanian was lucky to have avoided earlier punishment after what appeared to be a stamp on the head of David Murphy. He became the seventh Hearts player to see a red card this season and his own personal tally of three in less than two years will a heavy suspension from the SFA.

The net beneficiaries of this engrossing capital duel were 50 miles down the M8. Celtic now see their lead over Hearts in the Bank of Scotland Premierleague title race increased to five points and Steven Pressley, the Hearts captain, admitted afterwards: “We are trying our best to sustain a challenge to Celtic but at the moment we need favours from others teams.”

Well, Hearts could not ask for a bigger favour than the one given to them by their deadliest rivals. Malkowski has been the subject of criticism before as his poor goalkeeping undermined the good work of the young players in front of him and the weakest link of the Mowbray era was exposed again just as he was in last season’s Tennent’s Scottish Cup semi-final defeat by Hearts.

Rob Jones, the centre-half, looked on in disbelief as Malkowski charged out 16 yards to meet a cross from Lee Wallace in the 27th minute, never got there and allowed Velicka to head the ball into an unguarded net. “I had the situation under control,” Jones declared. “The next thing I knew, the goalkeeper was punching my head. He should never have come out for that.” Malkowski compounded that by allowing Velicka’s modest 71st-minute shot to sneak past him and Jones simply shrugged: “A keeper should never be beaten at his near post.”

Venus was hardly any more conciliatory. “Anyone who knows anything about goalkeeping, knows that Zibi made a poor decision to come. That game epitomised Hibernian in my time here with Tony. I told the players that afterwards. The reason we never finished off our time with a piece of silverware it because we concede too many slack goals.”

It was an occasion that revealed Edinburgh’s split football personality. Hearts epitomised how much sweat means in football as they rolled up their sleeves and hauled themselves back from the brink of a heavy defeat with genuine character, symbolised by Paul Hartley who covered every square yard of the Easter Road surface, especially once Mikoliunas was sent off. Hibernian’s collective psyche is so stuffed full of Einstein-like cleverness that there is no room for the other part, the bit that demands simplicity. Zemmama is a case in point. He opened the scoring with a wonderful piece of composure, then wasted every other chance that Hibernian had when they were in the ascendancy by being far too artful.

When it works, it is a joy to watch but you always feel that Hibernian really need a three-goal lead before they can count on success. It took Zemmama just five minutes to make the breakthrough after Ivan Sproule left Lee Wallace in his wake and cut the ball inside for Michael Stewart to gather and clip across the face of goal. There, Chris Killen laid it into the path of Zemmama who eschewed the simple shot, eluding a lunge from Pressley and Ibrahim Tall and dancing past before rolling a cheeky finish past Craig Gordon.

Ten minutes later, the lead was doubled. Zemmama picked out the unmarked Killen at the edge of the six-yard box and his headflick was given another glance by Brown just two yards out to help it over the line. Easter Road was in a state of fervour but Hibernian were always struggling to get over the finishing line once Velicka plundered his header in the 27th minute.

Mikoliunas, meanwhile, had already collected a booking for cutting down Kevin Thomson in a spell in which the contest threatened to spill out of control. When the winger foolishly tugged back Sproule in 58 minutes, the visitors seemed to have blown their chance.

However, Valdas Ivanauskas gambled by keeping two men up front and it paid off when Hartley launched a long diagonal ball from his own half over the top of the Hibernian defence. Steven Whittaker should have cleared it but tried to be too clever and watched Velicka race away to plant a left-foot shot past the weak hand of Malkowski.

The 4,000 Hearts fans erupted and rightly so. Their team had produced a resurrection and Gordon underlined the difference between the rivals in stoppage time with his sublime save from Jones’s thumping downward header, throwing himself to his left to paw the ball away. “It was an incredible save but we expect that of Craig,” Pressley praised. “We had to dig deep after going down to ten men and we showed great character. Saulius is only young but he will have to learn. Our red card record is something we have to address but we are not a dirty team.”

Venus admitted that he and Mowbray had taken Hibernian as far as they could with the budget constraints. “I hope the board appoint the right guy who can now take this side forward because they are a great set of players,” he said.

Hibernian (4-4-2): Z Malkowski 3 — S Whittaker 6, R Jones 7, S Martis 5, D Murphy 7 — M Stewart 8 (sub: S Glass, 69min 5), S Brown 9 (sub: S Fletcher, 81), K Thomson 8, M Zemmama 7 — I Sproule 6 (sub: D Shiels, 84), C Killen 7. Substitutes not used: A McNeil, A Benjelloun, J Shields, A Konte. Booked: Brown, Thomson, Killen, Sproule.

Heart of Midlothian (4-4-2): C Gordon 9 — I Tall 6, S Pressley 6, C Berra 5, L Wallace 5 — S Mikoliunas 5, M Zaliukas (sub: B Aguiar, 74), P Hartley 8, D Cesnauskis 5 — J Mole 7 (sub: M Beslija, 66 3), A Velicka 7 (sub: J Makela, 81). Substitutes not used: S Banks, R Neilson, T Fyssas, R Bednar. Booked: Pressley, Mikoliunas, Berra, Velicka. Sent off: Mikoliunas.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk