Rangers have no answer as Hearts find their rhythm at last

Right now there is nothing in Scottish football quite like the circus that is Heart of Midlothian. This memorable midday rumpus at Tynecastle on Saturday, played out amid the usual ear-splitting racket in this echo-chamber of a stadium, will be remembered as one of the games of the season, not always for football’s fine art known as “quality”, but for its raw and tense second half as Hearts successfully kept Rangers at bay.

And how they celebrated here. At the end of this game, by which point two goals from Marius Zaliukas and Laryea Kingston had proved enough for Hearts despite Rangers’ second-half assault, the denizens of Tynecastle were jumping up and down and celebrating as if a league championship itself had been won. They do their Old Firm conquest celebrations especially enthusiastically in these parts, perhaps because, more often than not, the drubbings go the other way. It was a spectacle to behold.

The circus aspect? Ah, well, the Hearts players yet again had not been paid – a sobering counter to the saccharine outlook of Campbell Ogilvie, the Hearts managing director, who in a rare newspaper interview just 24 hours earlier had spoken in warm, almost soothing tones about the workings of the Vladimir Romanov regime.

Why, that nasty Scottish media were always up to their tricks, claimed Ogilvie, trying to paint Romanov as something of a villain. But then, on Saturday morning, on the day of one of Hearts’ biggest games of the season, we awoke to the news that not one bawbee had been deposited in the players’ accounts by way of their monthly salaries.

“But if we’ve got players who come in with that [not being paid] on their mind, then these are not the sort you want at the club,” Christophe Berra, the Hearts captain, said a mite unconvincingly after this match. The “sort” who worry about being paid... is that really such a crime? It was against this background of further Lithuanian loopiness that this Hearts victory seemed extra special.

As for Csaba Laszlo, hand on heart, who can endure his infinite, incomprehensible ramblings? The Hungarian is a likeable sort, if a bit eccentric, but once he gets on track about Germany, Africa, and the piles of money he has earned in his career, it really is time to reach for the ear-plugs.

Following this win, Laszlo got off on the sort of verbal diarrhoea – offering seven-minute answers to questions during which he goes to the moon and back – which caused Setanta TV and radio and newspaper reporters to cut him off mid-stream before the next Ice Age arrives. If only Hearts could teach this fellow about verbal syntax, life would suddenly seem quite a bit longer.

Laszlo, though, knows how to please a crowd. After the final whistle, when the Hearts players cavorted around the pitch and they were hugging each other and beside themselves up in the stands, Laszlo grabbed Kingston at the mouth of the tunnel and embarked on a long embrace – the cameras in front of them – as a public show of togetherness.

Kingston, while recovering from injury, had three weeks ago jumped a flight to Africa for a friendly between his native Ghana and Tunisia, which had triggered from Laszlo the sort of verbal outpouring normally reserved for the beginning of world wars.

But look at this embrace on Saturday. Its choreographed posture said: “All is sweet, we love each other again.” And Laszlo and Hearts had plenty of reason to savour Kingston’s return to the team.

Rangers were in a state at the Hearts tempest which greeted them. Inside of two minutes midway through the first half the home side streaked to a 2-0 lead, first when Zaliuska lashed the ball home from four yards after Bruno Aguiar’s free kick had confounded the Rangers defence, and then when Kingston stooped to head home following another Aguiar free kick that the visitors failed to cope with.

There wasn’t just a menace about Hearts, but a bit of jack-the-lad as well. At the second goal Berra clearly pushed Madjid Bougherra to reach the downward header, a foul missed by the match officials. But Gorgie had rarely witnessed such excitement as this. The Rangers response was not pretty to watch.

From Charlie Adam’s free kick, Christos Karipidis put the ball into his own net to make it 2-1 after just 27 minutes, but the Ibrox side, even with Barry Ferguson and Pedro Mendes, went for a slightly lumpen approach which Hearts were able to rebuff. Berra, in particular, was a magnificent captain, winning everything that was thrown at him in the air – and that was a lot. Aguiar also gave Hearts a calculating sense of direction.

Hearts could even afford to have Lee Wallace sent off with 15 minutes remaining for a second yellow card after scything down Chris Burke, the Rangers substitute. In those final minutes Rangers laid siege to Jamie McDonald’s goal but not once did this jittery Hearts goalkeeper find himself truly exposed. Kris Boyd hooked high over with two minutes remaining but it would be Hearts’ day.

There was consternation around Tynecastle, with the party beginning to swell, when the fourth official indicated four minutes of time added on. The old gag duly went around that you couldn’t have Rangers losing like this – after all, it’s set out in the SFA handbook, the match officials were only following instructions. In fact, though, the referee, Dougie McDonald, had an excellent game, and Hearts got their reward. And you might have thought that Roy Rogers and Trigger were back in Edinburgh for a new show by the yelping and high-fiving that broke out.

Hearts (4-1-4-1): J McDonald 5 R Neilson 7 M Zaliuska 7 C Berra 8 L Wallace 5 C Karipidis 5 L Kingston 7 B Aguiar 8 R Palazuelos 7 A Driver 6 C Nade 6 Substitutes E Jonsson 6 (for Kingston, 63min), D Cesnauskis (for Aguiar, 80), D Obua (for Nade, 84). Not used M Kello, J Makelo, J Mole, J Thomson.

Rangers (4-4-2): A McGregor 6 K Broadfoot 5 M Bougherra 5 D Weir 6 S Whittaker 5 K Lafferty 5 P Mendes 5 B Ferguson 6 C Adam 5 J-C Darcheville 5 K Boyd 6 Substitutes C Burke 6 (for Adam, 56min), N Novo 5 (for Darcheville, 71). Not used N Alexander, M Edu, L McCulloch, A Niguez, R Loy.

Referee: D McDonald. Attendance: 15,710

Taken from timesonline.co.uk