Rangers take dive from high standards

In a week where a Heart of Midlothian employee was accused of blatant simulation, it was instead Rangers who were brought crashing to their knees. And this time there was no accusations of cheating.

Saulius Mikoliunas, the Lithuania winger, would, in some sections of the media, have been hung, drawn and quartered for his theatrical dive in last Saturday’s Euro 2008 group B qualifier at Hampden Park against Scotland which resulted in a penalty kick.

The midfield player was officially “injured” for this clash, which was either very fortunate or simply good public relations as emotions are still running high over his antics. His compatriots, Kestutis Ivaskevicius and Audrius Ksanavicius, however, exacted revenge on his behalf on their Scottish opponents on Saturday by helping remove Rangers from the top of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

It had not been a good couple of weeks to be Lithuanian in this country. Hearts’ early season toils were blamed on the misfiring imports with the club owner, Vladimir Romanov, taking his squad on a morale-boosting training camp in his own country as their season looked certain to implode. It seems to have galvanised not only the likes of Ksanavicius and Ivaskevicius but also their Scottish contingent in this remarkable triumph, with Andrew Driver and Michael Stewart key figures in an early-afternoon kick-off in Edinburgh that was simply enthralling.

How Romanov would have loved getting one over his main rivals who looked a shell of their high-flying selves of earlier in the campaign where they were steamrolling everything in front of them.

Quite how Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, and his team will respond in the coming days could well have a major impact in the Ibrox team’s ambitions and finances. The small matter of a Champions League home game against VfB Stuttgart of Germany on Wednesday night will focus their attention after this uncharacteristic collapse.

Rangers must get a victory against the Bundesliga side in midweek as they may find Barcelona and the French club, Lyons, insurmountable challenges in their other group games.

Understandably, Smith chose to rest his captain, Barry Ferguson, ahead of the European clash. In light of Ferguson’s exertions for Scotland in midweek in France it was sensible management. Certainly, Smith would not have been expecting to have to send an emergency call to his midfield player at half-time with Rangers out of sorts and out of the game at 2-0 behind.

Driver’s wonderful strike was added to before the half-hour mark by an Ibrahim Tall lob over Allan McGregor, the Rangers goalkeeper. An all-too-brief comeback was sparked by Ferguson’s arrival which culminated in Daniel Cousin scoring from the penalty spot. Hearts, however, were not finished and Stewart’s own spot-kick and the clinching Ivaskevicius drive under the body of McGregor sealed the victory before DaMarcus Beasley put a kind reflection on the scoreline for the visitors.

Kris Boyd, the Rangers striker, was replaced at the break with a head knock but he had the clarity afterwards to acknowledge their general ineptitude. “There is not a bigger platform to play football than in the Champions League,” Boyd said. “We have done well to get there and we must be confident. The important part was to get there so there’s nothing to lose in these games. If we go out and give it our best shot anything can happen. We need to raise our game after this otherwise we may get embarrassed.

“It’s up to us to show we are a good team and to come back from a disappointing performance. This type of performance was not acceptable. The first 20 minutes was not good enough. We fell behind to two goals and it was an uphill battle from there. We got back into it at 2-1 but then other things happened. You can have days like that. We will go again and we have the chance to rectify that on Wednesday.”

Hearts now look like a well-oiled machine after making it three victories in a row despite their early-season turmoils. Steve Banks, the Hearts goalkeeper, admitted the turnaround in their fortunes was the result of Romanov’s latest motivational techniques. “When we were in Lithuania \ we had a bit of a pep talk with Mr Romanov. He told us to believe in ourselves. He told us to remain positive as the future is positive,” Banks said.

Stevie Frail, the Hearts assistant coach, added: “We had a plan set out to try to frustrate Rangers and squeeze and press them. It’s vital we carry on from here. It’s no use winning against Rangers then not carrying it on against Inverness Caledonian Thistle next weekend.”

On this performance the future is not looking as rosy for Smith’s Rangers, with the manager saying: “We can only hope that that first 20 minutes is something we have got out of our system and we can revert to something like normal. We hope to stay in a challenging position in the championship and that defeat puts a question mark over that.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out it was a below-par performance. Hearts didn’t surprise us — teams raise their game against the Old Firm. If they played like that every week, they wouldn’t have any problems, but the fact is they don’t. If this turns out to be a recurring problem, we’re going to be back to where we were when we came to the club.”

Heart of Midlothian 4
Driver 13, Tall 27, Stewart 66 (pen), Ivaskevicius 70

Heart of Midlothian (4-4-2): S Banks 6 — R Neilson 6, I Tall 7, C Berra 7, L Wallace 6 — L Kingston 8, M Zaliukas 6 (sub: R Palazuelos, 72min 3), M Stewart 7, A Driver 7 (sub: K Ivaskevicius, 49 7) — A Ksanavicius 8, C Nade 7 (sub: C Elliot, 76, 3). Substitutes not used: E Kurskis, M Pospisil, T Kanchelskis, C Karipidis. Booked: Neilson, Stewart, Ksanavicius.

Rangers 2
Cousin 49 (pen), Beasley 74

Rangers (4-4-2): A McGregor 5 — A Hutton 5, D Weir 5, C Cuellar 4, S Papac 5 — S Whittaker 6, D Beasley 6, K Thomson 4, A Faye 4 (sub: J-C Darcheville, 46 4) — K Boyd 4 (sub: B Ferguson, 46 6), D Cousin 6 (sub: N Novo, 77 3). Substitutes not used: G Smith, S Naismith, S Lennon, R Loy. Booked: Hutton, Beasley, Thomson, Cuellar.

Referee: M McCurry Attendance: 15,948

Taken from timesonline.co.uk