Hearts left looking over their shoulder after another bad defeat

When Vladimir Romanov, the Heart of Midlothian owner, promised to deliver silverware, the top prize at the Lithuanian version of Strictly Come Dancing probably wasn’t quite what the supporters had in mind.

The eccentric 60-year-old banker last week walked away with a cheque for £30,000 after impressing judges with his paso doble, cha-cha-cha, fox-trot and the waltz. So it is little surprise his team – remember them, Vladimir? – were led a merry dance of their own at Falkirk on Saturday.

This was more akin to a drunken uncle at a wedding than something that would have impressed Craig Revel Horwood and his fellow judges. A fifth consecutive defeat makes a mockery of talk of a title challenge and Champions League place with the Edinburgh club facing the realistic prospect of a relegation battle after two late goals by Falkirk sealed a deserved victory for the home side.

Despite leading through a 27th-minute effort from Ruben Palazuelos, the visitors failed to push their advantage and Falkirk responded with a bit of glitz and glamour of their own with goals from Carl Finnigan and Michael Higdon. The fact the visitors could not deal with the introduction of a chain-smoking, 39-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago tells its own story as to why they find themselves in this mess. Russell Latapy, the Falkirk player-coach, was instrumental in changing this game after his arrival as a substitute as any game plan the visitors had was ignored, forgotten or, more likely, lost in translation.

As yet unconfirmed reports suggested the Tynecastle club will announce debts of up to £40 million this week. On the back of home defeats by Inverness Caledonian Thistle and St Mirren, as well as the farce surrounding the goalkeeping lucky dip policy which cost them a point at Rangers, the Tynecastle side are now officially in crisis. Again.

Stephen Frail, the assistant coach, admitted earlier last week he would be fearing for his job if he had any say whatsoever in team selection with the faceless duo of Anatoly Korobochka, apparently the director of football, and Angel Chervenkov, the coach, the so-called brains behind formations and selections. Hearts will remain in this state until Romanov, his management team and many of his foreign players accept the reality of the situation and not keep up the pretence of being too good to go down.

“It is difficult to accept we got beaten as we had the game under our control and lost it to our own mistakes,” Palazuelos said. “It was a lack of concentration and we need to work harder to stop these mistakes. I don’t think we should be where we are.”

Finnigan was jubilant after his successful introduction from the bench but was left pondering what Latapy could have done for his career if they had crossed paths while the midfield player was at his peak. “Russell came on and ran the show,” the former Newcastle United forward said. “I wonder what he must have been like in his prime? As a striker you know he’ll find you with the ball.”

Despite stretching the run of defeats to five in a row, Frail was left to put the positive spin on yet another loss. “I thought we could have had the game won at half-time with the two or three chances we created,” he said. “I can be slightly optimistic but ultimately it’s a defeat. When the goal went in, there is a feeling of ‘Here we go again’. I think it is a confidence thing, without any question.”

Falkirk (4-4-2) T Krul 7 J Ross Y 6 D Holden 7 T Scobbie 8 G Aafjes 6 P Cregg 5 S Arfield 6 S Thomson 8 G Barrett 6 P Moutinho 6 M Higdon Y 7 Substitutes R Latapy 8 (for Cregg, 54min), C Finnigan 7 (for Barrett, 67) Not used R Olejnik, B Allison, A Riera, K Milne, C Mitchell.

Hearts (4-4-2) S Banks 6 R Neilson 6 L Wallace Y 7 C Berra 6 I Tall 6 M Stewart 5 K Ivaskevicius 5 A Driver 8 R Palazuelos Y 7 C Elliot Y 6 M Zaliukas 5 Substitutes M Pospisil (for Elliot, 80min), S Mikoliunas (for Ivaskevicius, 84), E Jonsson (for Zaliukas, 84) Not used A Basso, J Goncalves, R McGowan, R Beniusis.

Referee K Clark
Attendance 6,614

Taken from timesonline.co.uk