Rangers in ruin after Hearts attack

Hearts 2
(Karipidis 64; Palazuelos 68)
IF AN alien spaceship had landed on the pitch and started pumping out the strains of 'Donald Where's Yir Troosers' it would have been no more unbelievable and inexplicable than what occurred over the final 26 minutes of yesterday's encounter at Ibrox.

Until that point, matters were going only one way, a point grimly acknowledged by Rangers manager Walter Smith afterwards. His team, fuelled by the desire to make amends for their Old Firm Cup final defeat and the previous home loss to Inverness, had produced precisely the sort of performance required. It earned them a two-goal lead which, while scarcely reflecting their domination, seemed about to put them back on top of the league at least until Celtic play at Tannadice this afternoon. No other outcome was even the tiniest possibility, with Hearts so shockingly bad they had then made absolutely zero contribution to events other than simply be on the pitch when they happened.

Then Calum Elliot, a second-half substitution for Deividis Cesnauskis, had a stinging effort tipped over by Allan McGregor in the 63rd minute. From that moment all changed utterly. The resultant corner was bundled in by Christos Karipidis, and suddenly the Tynecastle men came to life. Four minutes later Rangers' marking was non-existent as Ruben Palazuelos had time and space to shape his body, meet a header from Elliot side on, and send a bouncing effort beyond McGregor from 14 yards.

These goals transformed both teams in outrageous fashion and thereafter Hearts were the side who looked like finding a winner. Now Celtic have the opportunity to open up a five-point lead over Rangers when they face Dundee United this afternoon.

Smith is well aware of the potential repercussions of such a crackers turnabout, and did well to keep his rage from bubbling to the surface as he took questions about the ultimate in quixotic games. But as he got up to leave, he could keep his emotions in check no longer about the volley of abuse that greeted his team at the final whistle. "When I came back here, I made the team difficult to beat and people said that was the wrong thing," Smith said. "To those people sitting out there this afternoon, it might be the right thing to do."

The Rangers manager has clearly been stung by the charges of negativity at Hampden last week. He could not be accused of the same yesterday, with Kyle Lafferty partnering the empty-jersey Kris Boyd and DeMarcus Beasley making it a three-pronged attack by buzzing forward from the left-midfield position. Smith had cause to curse a fourth attacker, Nacho Novo, however, who replaced the injured Lafferty 32 minutes in. He fired against the post early in the second period – "that cost us dearly," Smith maintained – but he also recognised "a softness, a lack of resilience" cost his team in the meek manner they let a two-goal lead evaporate.

"For a team chasing the championship to lose out like that," he said. "It was one of our better home performances but in a few minutes we undid all that had gone before. We have now dropped five points from our past two home games despite having 90% of them and that is difficult to take."

Even though it arrived so early, when Lafferty lashed the ball in to seal a blistering start, the notion of Hearts' visit being an awkward occasion appeared to recede dramatically. As the team with a five-point cushion in third place, Csaba Laszlo's men were supposed to be opponents capable of exploiting a weakened Rangers. In the first 45 minutes, they were so inept the only side they troubled was themselves.

In his glorious post-match ramble that included indecipherable references to chickens, snakes and cars, the Hearts manager accepted as much. In that typically whacky way of his. "If you see that your team plays this shit like we did in the first half, you can just run out of the stadium and say 'it's Mothers' Day tomorrow' and forget about the football. But we are guys, we are at Ibrox and we are still in the first half. I wanted to kill some of the people in my dressing room at half time. But the second half was sexy."

The Rangers-central-defence-you-thought-you-would never-see, formed by Christian Dailly and Lee McCulloch in the absence of the suspended David Weir and the injured Madjid Bougherra and Kirk Broadfoot, strolled through the early stages entirely untroubled. No wonder Laszlo wanted to take bodies. His players wouldn't.

All they did was help Rangers manufacture openings with their own mishaps, the story of the opener. Played in the left back area by his keeper, David Obua crazily fire the ball across his own goal and straight to Beasley, who released Lafferty to finish stylishly.

Novo's arrival in Lafferty's place after the Irishman had turned his ankle did not alter the pattern of the confrontation, which was utterly one-sided. Again, Hearts contributed to the second goal, Barry Ferguson finding himself in acres of space after being slipped inside by Pedro Mendes after the Portuguese's corner had been played out to him.

A piercing low drive and Ferguson was off on a celebration that amounted to him cupping hand to his ears – possibly a gesture to the volume of criticism aimed in his direction by the Ibrox legions this week. It will be turned up to 11 in the aftermath of this second-half collapse.

Taken from the Scotsman