The Hearts soap opera rumbles on

ON PAPER, HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN’S narrow win against a notoriously difficult side to break down and beat looks decent enough. Even their lofty league position would suggest they could yet mount a challenge to get second place and that Champions League prize that goes with it. At Tynecastle though, they don’t play the game on paper, they play it in an increasingly bizarre world called Planet Hearts where nothing is as it seems.

Don’t be fooled by their victory against Inverness, Hearts were poor and extremely fortunate when late substitute Michal Pospisil headed the ball into the Caley Thistle net with his first touch of the ball with eight minutes left.

True, Hearts had the best of possession, but completely lacked ideas or attacking invention and were a pale imitation of the side who at least started to give Celtic a run for their money last season before they imploded in now familiar Hearts style. In fact, the Hearts XI sent out on Saturday was even a pale imitation of the one sent out by Valdas Ivanauskas in August against the same opponents.

Which other club in world football could say they have changed ten out of the 11 starters just a few months into the same season? Only Marius Zaliukas, the Lithuanian defender — who was making his debut in that 4-1 win earlier this season — remained from the usual mismatch of Lithuanians, eastern Europeans, Africans, Englishmen and even two Scots in the Hearts line-up.

That Hearts were fortunate to win the match was because Rory McAllister hit the bar with a header not long before Hearts made the breakthrough. And it took a superb save inside the opening two minutes from Steve Banks to prevent Graham Bayne from opening the scoring. Of course, the fact that Banks was in goal at all was yet another huge talking point among the Hearts fans who, noticeably, left a few empty places in their stadium for the first time this season.

Gordon was the only one of the so-called “Riccarton Three” — which included Steven Pressley and Paul Hartley who had the nerve to speak out about what was happening at the club — who still remains at Tynecastle. His reward has been a place on the bench, or in the stands on Saturday’s evidence, and he surely now faces a miserable few months until the transfer window reopens. But if we are to believe Ivanauskas, Gordon’s misery is why he isn’t actually playing for Hearts at the moment and he will soon be back.

Amid the customary doom, gloom and sideshows, there were as couple of plus points for Hearts. New signing Laryea Kingston was easily their best player and showed a vision and touch that was certainly lacking from most of his other team mates. Ivanauskas’s other surprise was to hand Arkadiusz Klimek, the 31-year-old former Poland international striker, his debut. One of an unbelievable 14 players on loan from those world football legends FBK Kaunas, Klimek at least looked like he was interested unlike his lumbering strike partner, Edgaras Jankauskas.

“I have only had a month’s training and I am lacking fitness,” Klimek said through an interpreter. “In Lithuania, they show Scottish matches on the television all the time, so I knew what to expect. I have settled in OK with the help of my team-mate, Andrius Velicka, and I hope I can do well. If I am given the chance to perform, I will show what I can do.”

Charlie Christie, the Inverness manager, was unhappy at his side’s showing and it is a measure of how far the Highlanders have come that they went home desperately disappointed at picking up nothing from Tynecastle.

“It was a tight game which I thought was petering out for a 0-0 draw, but it was the fewest number of chances we have created for a long time,” Christie said. “We know we can play a lot better than that and it is certainly the worst we have played for about six or seven games. This is a very hard place to come but I really felt we could come here and win or at least draw. But there wasn’t a lot of football played and we relied too much on high balls instead of passing.”

Heart of Midlothian (4-4-2): S Banks 7 — I Tall 4, M Zaliukas 5, C Berra 6, T Fyssas 7 — C Elliot 6 (sub: E Jonsson, 74min 2), J Brellier 6, L Kingston 8, A Driver 6 — E Jankauskas 4 (sub: R Bednar, 61 5), A Klimek 5 (sub: M Pospisil, 81). Substitutes not used: E Kurskis, L Wallace, C Karipidis, N McCann. Booked: Brellier.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle (4-4-2): M Fraser 7 — R Tokely 7, D Dods 6, G Munro 8, R Hastings 7 — B Wilson 7 (sub: G McSwegan, 85), R Duncan 6, R McBain 7, J Rankin 6 (sub: A Morgan, 63 4) — G Bayne 6, R McAllister 6. Substitutes not used: A Ridgers, S McCaffrey, I Black, M Paatelainen, S Soane. Booked: McBain.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk