Late heartbreak could so easily have been avoided

Stuart Lovell
WITH Setanta screening just one live SPL game over the weekend – yesterday's match between Motherwell and Celtic – I had a window of opportunity on Saturday to go and see any fixture which took my fancy.
Some friends invited me to join them in the corporate hospitality at Tynecastle for the match with St Mirren and, given the history between the two clubs, I thought it had the makings of an intriguing contest.

How wrong I was – the game turned out to be as dull as dishwater, with very few moments of quality from either side.

I can only imagine how frustrated Csaba Laszlo must have been in the aftermath having watched his team throw away a 1-0 lead with just minutes to go.

All things considered, he will surely look upon the result as an opportunity missed, especially after seeing closest rivals, Dundee United and Aberdeen, share the spoils at Pittodrie.

In the lead up to this game, much was made of the fact St Mirren wanted the fixture put back 24 hours to allow their players time to recover from the exertions of a Scottish Cup replay on Thursday night.

With that in mind, I expected to see Hearts come flying out of the traps in a bid to have the game won by half-time and, although they started the brighter of the two teams, they never really tested the resolve of a St Mirren side who must've been fearing the worst.

There was a distinct lack of edge to Hearts' attacking play and the poor movement of Christian Nade up front made it virtually impossible for the midfielders to create any openings.

In the first half at least, Andrew Driver was a virtual spectator, standing out wide waiting for a pass that never arrived.

When you have someone in your side like Driver, whose first thought whenever he gets the ball is to beat his man and get crosses into the box, you ram the ball down his throat until he's sick of the sight of it.

Hearts seemed content to play sideways and backwards with no real sense of how to find a cutting edge.

For me, the only two players who caught the eye were Gary Glen and David Obua.

Glen may only be 18, but he's very direct and it's clear all he wants to do is find the quickest way to goal.

Losing him to injury just before half-time was a savage blow to the home side as he looked the one most likely to break the deadlock.

I'd only seen glimpses of Obua prior to Saturday's game and, having spoken to a few Jambos about him, I wasn't expecting much, but I felt he was the best player on the pitch.

He reminds me of a former team-mate at Livingston, Cherif Toure-Maman, a graceful mover with plenty of skill but not necessarily one you'd want in the trenches with you when the going gets tough.

Obua was asked to play in any number of positions over the 90, but, wherever he was on the pitch, he made a positive contribution.

With Christos Karipidis missing through illness, Laszlo had been forced into making more changes to his back-four with skipper, Robbie Neilson, moving to the centre alongside Eggert Jonsson.

For the most part, both players coped reasonably well with the physical threat of St Mirren's front two, Hamilton and Mehmet, but the fact they had to play out of position only served to highlight the loss of Berra and Zaliukas.

Hearts could certainly have done with those two as they tried to hold on to their lead late on.

Just a hopeful into the box caused havoc amongst what the Hearts boss described as "the shortest team I've fielded in years".

That may be so, but defending the second or third ball is often just as important as winning the first header.

One thing that strikes me whenever I watch Hearts is how poor they are at tracking midfield runners. Andy Dorman is well known for making late surges into the box, yet I counted half-a-dozen occasions throughout the 90 minutes when he was allowed to run off his man unchallenged. Hearts got away with it for most of the match, but it came back to bite them right at the death.

How anyone can find that much space in the six-yard box from a set-piece in the dying moments of a game is just crazy, but that was exactly how it panned out. I counted at least three Hearts players who, if they'd blocked his run, could've prevented him from scoring, but failed to do so.

Who can tell how costly that goal may prove as we enter the final third of the season?

Taken from the Scotsman