Christopher Berra brands Walter Smith’s tactics as too leaden

Christophe Berra, the Heart of Midlothian captain, has claimed that his team feasted on Rangers’ one-dimensional tactics to beat Walter Smith’s men 2-1 at Tynecastle on Saturday and leave the Ibrox side seven points behind Celtic in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

The win, which was Hearts’ fifth in a row in the Premier League, left the Gorgie men secure in third place, seven points behind Rangers. Yet the match was overshadowed by a further nonpayment of salaries to Hearts players, which Berra insisted would be rectified today.

It was the nature of his team’s victory, however, and Rangers’ woodenness, that the Hearts captain was keen to highlight. “A lot of their tactics involved putting long balls into the box and, while they do have big players who can cause problems, we stayed solid and tight and we got through it,” Berra said. “We showed a lot of character against Rangers.

“We got close to them in midfield. [Barry] Ferguson and [Pedro]Mendes are quality players but, even in the second half when we were down to ten men, I don’t think they once cut us open. We defended well. Even if you look at Rangers’ goal, it came out of nothing, it was just luck. We knew they can score goals, so it was great credit to our defence and midfield that we stopped them from doing that.”

Berra said no one at Tynecastle would get carried away with the victory, but he savoured the returns from injury of Bruno Aguiar and Laryea Kingston. Along with Berra himself, Aguiar was one of Hearts’ best players against Rangers.

“We’re not going to get carried away,” he said. “We’ve had five victories in a row now and it was a great performance by us, but we know that Rangers have got more strength in depth than us. But we did to them what Celtic did to us recently – we got in their faces and made them make mistakes.

“Every team needs creative players who can open up defences and I think Bruno and Laryea are the kind of players who can do that. They can make that cutting pass, and Bruno delivered two great balls for our goals.”

Asked about the financial situation at Hearts, and the nonpayment of salaries by the Vladimir Romanov regime on Friday, the Hearts captain remained sanguine. “We are all professionals,” Berra said. “OK, we didn’t get our money on Friday – we are getting it on Monday – but that just shows the professionalism we have. You are doing it for yourself. So you go out there to show your own pride and your own quality.

“The money is there. It was getting processed on Friday, and everyone has been assured that we will get the money on Monday morning. It is not a concern for us. If we had players who came here today with that [not getting paid] on their mind then these are the type of players you don’t want. Luckily, we don’t have them here. As soon as you cross that white line, you can’t raise anything as an excuse.”

Meanwhile, Chris Burke, the Rangers winger who made his first appearance for seven months after coming on as a second-half substitute on Saturday, said his team would have to change swiftly and for the better if they are to reclaim the title.

“We just couldn’t penetrate Hearts,” Burke said. “We gifted them their two goals – two set-pieces – and it gave us a mountain to climb to try to get back. We just didn’t do enough in the second half to get it back. We are going to have to rectify it. We have lost too many points away from home now, and that will have to change if we are to win the title again. We’ve got three Old Firm games left and these will all feel like six-pointers now.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk