Michael Stewart out to salvage season

DRINKING in the top-six last chance saloon is no fun. Michael Stewart admits as much, having never failed to finish in the SPL's upper half since returning to Scotland four years ago. Come 3pm tomorrow, expect this particular red-head to emerge from Tynecastle's tunnel as fiery as ever, for Hearts' situation demands nothing less.
Last week's match with Falkirk was branded "win or bust" by the club's internet commentary team. Although not quite that serious, the subsequent goalless draw leaves strictly no margin for error this weekend when the wily Craig Levein brings Dundee United to Edinburgh. Inadvertent favours from Falkirk are also essential to avoid a despondent ending to an exasperating campaign.

Hearts, like Stewart, have perennially finished in the league's upper echelons since the split format was introduced eight years ago. Both parties now have those respective records hanging by a thread, and Stewart confidently pinpoints some reasons why.

"It's not the results at the moment which are killing us, it's the ones prior to New Year. They've really hampered us," he said. "If you look at our progress since the turn of the year – I'm not saying it's been beautiful football or fantastic results – but we've picked up far more points in the second half of the season than prior to that. There's a marked difference in what was going on then and what we're doing now.

"If we'd shown that form throughout the season, we'd be sitting in third place comfortably. We're doing our best to play catch up but there's so much negativity in people's minds. When we get a draw at home against Falkirk – not the best result, I admit – it's all pessimism instead of remembering the moderate improvement since New Year.

"I'm not trying to disguise the fact that the performance and result weren't good enough last weekend, but it's nowhere near as bad as some make out. The perception amongst people is that everything here is always horrendous, and it's not.

"Shaggy (Stevie Frail) has been a big influence on things because he's been able to galvanise the squad. It's a logical assumption to say had he been in place a while ago we'd at least be inside the top six, possibly even challenging for third place or close to it."

Reading between the lines, Stewart appears to lay blame for Hearts' mediocre season squarely at the feet of Angel Chervenkov, the Bulgarian coach sacked by Vladimir Romanov on New Year's Eve. He probably isn't far wrong, for not only did Chervenkov make both tactical and team selection errors in tandem with Romanov during the first half of the campaign, he brazenly refused to step into the public domain to explain them.

Stephen Frail is now striving to salvage some respect from an ignominous campaign, and may be without Saulius Mikoliunas plus long-term absentees Andy Driver, Neil McCann, Mauricio Pinilla and Bruno Aguiar tomorrow. "There will be a lot of pressure against United and we have to shoulder that. Last week was a similarly big game with big consequences depending on the result. Now we need three points just to stay alive in respect of the top six," said Stewart.

The not so small hurdle in Hearts' way concerns how to outsmart Levein, a former Tynecastle manager who causes nothing but vexation whenever he returns to his old domain. United effected 4-0 and 3-1 victories on each of his last two clashes with Hearts in Gorgie, while Stewart himself has particularly distasteful memories of December's 4-1 reverse at Tannadice when he was ordered off.

There is no curse, of course, simply that Levein knows how to shuffle his squad depending on the assignment in hand. His astute management skills are currently facilitating United's stride towards the UEFA Cup, a tournament he regularly frequented with Hearts.

"He brought me to the club originally (on loan from Manchester United in 2004] but I was disappointed on a number of occasions because I felt I was needing games and wasn't getting them," continued Stewart. "Craig felt you needed to be 100 per cent before he'd let you step on the pitch so it was an unfortunate catch 22 situation. I felt as fit as I was going to be without matches, he was of a different mindset.

"His philosophy in football opened my eyes a bit. A lot of things he did, he went about the right way. That has stuck with me to this day."

If anything, Stewart's on-field antics have, on occasion, mirrored the collective frustration felt by Hearts supporters this season. The aforementioned red card at Tannadice after a second yellow for verbally berating a visiting supporter is a perfect example: "A number of refereeing decisions were hampering us that day and decisions were going United's way at the right points in the game. These are the turning points in games and they weren't falling our
way so there was a massive amount of frustration.

"It was Shaggy's first game in charge and there was a lot of optimism in the dressing room beforehand. We felt it was the start of something.

"It wasn't the right thing to do and I don't condone what happened, but I understand in my own mind how the incident came about. The supporter was hanging over the barrier shouting a few words at me. The guy's going to shout whatever he wants and I didn't agree with him. But, as I turned round, the fans around him, almost to a man, weren't agreeing with him either and that's what triggered my reaction.

"Everyone who heard him seemed to think it was a personal attack on me, rather than the team as a whole. It was something I wasn't happy with although I reacted wrongly. I've put the incident to the back of my mind now and the best way to put it properly to bed would be to win tomorrow."

Taken from the Scotsman