Darcheville and Novo clobber abject Hearts

GLENN GIBBONS
AT TYNECASTLE

RANGERS returned to the scene of what Walter Smith had called "our worst performance of the season" and made amends with a mercilessness that would give their normally diffident manager cause to allow himself a little preening.

This may or may not have been the Premier League leaders' most impressive performance of the season, but it would certainly be Hearts' worst since they lost 5-0 at Celtic Park in August. Doubles from Jean-Claude Darcheville and the substitute, Nacho Novo, were merely the means by which separation in football matches is achieved. Following a quiet start, it would have taken another handful of goals to give a true measurement of the ultimate disparity between the teams.

Those first-half goals from Darcheville had seemed something of an improbability during an opening 25 minutes in which the most serious threat from Rangers had arisen from set-pieces – specifically, corner kicks – while Hearts' forward thrusts had been, by and large, halted well short of their objective, the neighbourhood of Allan McGregor.

This was the consequence of a certain care being taken by both sides in the matter of allowing their opponents space in which to contrive menace. Probably mindful of his team's vulnerability while sustaining a 4-2 defeat on their last visit, Smith seemed to have taken out some insurance by playing Christian Dailly in a holding midfield role in front of his defenders.

If it was designed to prevent Hearts from making the kind of explosive and rewarding start they had made to that previous meeting, it was impressively effective. It did not, however, do much to promote an open, inventive first 25 minutes.

In that time, though, Steve Banks had been called upon to effect an astonishing save from a corner by Barry Ferguson on the right. Dailly and Carlos Cuellar both challenged for the header, but it was the Scotland man who appeared to send the ball into the goal-mouth. Steven Naismith, unmarked, headed it in turn from such close range that the prevention of a goal appeared impossible. By throwing himself to his right and deflecting the ball over with his right hand, Banks caused the acclaim of the visiting players and their fans to die on their lips.

The generally uneventful period was disturbed by Rangers' goal, which was started by the dilatoriness of Ruben Palazuelos. The Spanish midfielder took possession just outside his own penalty area and, as Steven Davis closed on him from behind, he could not claim not to have been warned as the entire home support yelled the presence of the Irishman. The alarm went unheeded as Palazuelos dwelt long enough to allow Davis to steal possession. The ball was quickly shuttled to Darcheville on the left side of the penalty area and, from a testing angle, the Frenchman squeezed his low, left-foot shot into the far corner.

Almost predictably, Hearts would concede the second from another corner kick and from sluggish defending. It was Ferguson once again who made the delivery from the right and, once again, Dailly who, without a challenger, sent the free header back across the area.

Unforgivably in the light of what had gone before, Naismith again was on his own as he touched the ball on to Darcheville, the striker this time forcing the ball rather untidily over the line from close range as his nearest opponents looked as alert and mobile as furniture.

The scoreline at that point was the reverse of what had occurred in the last meeting, due in no small part to the home team's glaring deficiencies in the area of causing any kind of scare in the visitors' defence. In truth, McGregor must have gone in at the interval wondering when he would be asked to start work.

Reaching the halfway stage was clearly enough to convince Smith that there would be no further need of Darcheville, a notion that was vindicated within nine minutes of the appearance of the striker's replacement, Novo. The little Spaniard's achievement in stretching the lead to three was ridiculously easy, and should have filled the home support with a sense of hopelessness over their team's haplessness.

When Ferguson took possession in midfield and sprayed the ball out to Charlie Adam on the left, the latter probably knew he had only to deliver it into the general area of Banks to bring an odds-on chance of a teammate being on hand as the recipient. Adam's cross was not even crisply struck, but there was no need for such refinement. The ball bobbled straight to Novo, who had only to deflect it past Banks, once again hopelessly exposed, from about six yards out.

Like Smi
th, Stevie Frail had made a change at the start of the second half, but for different reasons. The arrival of Saulius Mikoliunas for his countryman, Deividas Cesnauskis, was an attempt to ignite a comeback. But the substitute would hardly have warmed up before his team fell further behind and he had been rendered an irrelevance when Novo scored the fourth.

David Weir supplied Adam on the right and his low centre was back-heeled, at a rather slow pace, towards the goal line from about six yards. It would have to be assumed that Banks, excellent throughout, was unsighted, as the ball eluded him low to his right.

"Can we play you every week?" sang the Rangers supporters, with understandable glee. Given opponents of Hearts' frailty on each of the fixtures that have to be completed between now and the end of the campaign, Rangers would take the championship without breaking sweat

Taken from the Scotsman