Rangers 1 - 1 Hearts: Laszlo apoplectic after ten-men Hearts concede last-gasp equaliser

Published Date: 24 January 2010
By Tom English at Ibrox
AT THE end, Csaba Laszlo was left kicking a plastic bottle onto the pitch in anger, shouting like a madman, gesticulating wildly at nobody and everybody.

"Aaaarrrgghhh," he roared. Or something like that. Whatever it was, it was a screech of frustration, the bonkers behaviour of a man who'd just been sickened at seeing his team lose out on an improbable victory when an injury-time goal from Andrew Little, the first of his young Rangers life, salvaged a point for the champions.
They deserved that much, that's for sure. On chances created, a point was their right. The locals will be relieved – the gap at the top is now ten points – but they might also be thinking about the opportunities they missed because in some ways this was a vision of the post-Kris Boyd era, if it comes to pass. He was absent, along with Kenny Miller, Nacho Novo, DaMarcus Beasley and Steven Naismith, leaving Rangers with a frontline of John Fleck, who played well, and Kyle Lafferty, who yet again did not. Under the circumstances, it wasn't such a bad point for the home team.

This is hardly science, but had Boyd been on the field then you'd fancy that all the Rangers sweat and tears of the final minutes may have been avoided. You could have seen how Boyd might have buried something earlier in the game for what Rangers lacked was a poacher. If this was a glimpse of life after Boyd then the Ibrox crowd will be sleeping fitfully between now and the end of the month. The landscape is not a pleasing one without their great finisher looming large.
Back to Csaba, though. Pointing and prodding on the touchline, replaying some incident that led to Little's goal, some Rangers man who wasn't picked up, some defensive lapse on his team's part. "Our stupidity," he said later. "I was not very quiet in the dressing-room. I was loud. If you lose two points so late in the game then it is not necessary."

With 17 minutes remaining he'd watched his striker, Christian Nade,
get sent off for two quick offences, a ridiculously harsh first yellow for a push that never was and a deserved second for kicking the ball away and then, like the rest of us, looked on in wonder as Scott Robinson put the ten men ahead a few moments later. Come the injury time, though, come young Little, pouncing on a loose ball in the six-yard box.
Laszlo didn't spare Nade. "I'm very, very angry with him," said the manager. "He didn't deserve the first one, but he got it and he must accept it so you can't do what he did. I don't want to speak against Christian, but if he was making a foul to stop a Rangers goal, OK. But for this, it was stupid."

Young and healthy men have grown old and infirm in the time it takes Laszlo to run through his various tales of woe. But at least this was a more recognisable Hearts team – well organised and physical – than the group of tyros he fielded in the cup tie at Pittodrie a few weeks back. And one of the most unmistakable of the lot could have got them off to a stunning beginning had he converted an opportunity in the early minutes. Take a guess who we're talking about, Hearts fans. A decent turn in the box following a forceful run from Michael Stewart. An unobstructed sight of goal. A rasping shot – that flew over. If you guessed Nade, take a bow, for it was he.

For a long time after, Rangers felt sure they were in no danger. They had most of the play and a number of chances, too. Not golden ones, but decent all the same. You could almost hear the Hearts fans giving thanks for the absent Boyd as Rangers pushed on and yet continually failed to score.
There were many reasons for that. Goalkeeper Marian Kello was part of it. He did wonderfully to paw away a Steven Davis free-kick midway through the first half. General profligacy was another cause. Kirk Broadfoot headed over from a good position following a Kevin Thomson free kick just before the half-hour and Lafferty – God bless him and his flailing ways – blasted one wide just after.

Nade forced a save out of Allan McGregor early in the new half, but the one-way traffic continued thereafter. Sasa Papac rifled one in from distance, Fleck curled a shot past a post and Kello saved from Lafferty. Then Nade walked. His first yellow was supposedly for a jostle with Davie Weir, his second for daftly kicking the ball into the crowd. Two minutes after that came the bizarre twist that was Robinson's goal.
Lee Wallace had much to do with it, bombing up the left and driving a shot at McGregor, which the goalkeeper could only parry. Robinson reacted quickly and poked it in ahead of Papac. Ibrox was in uproar now and stayed that way as Rangers toiled badly in the closing minutes. Until Little did his thing, that is. Lee McCulloch's shot was saved by Kello, but the breaking ball fell to the grateful Northern Irishman who stabbed it home. "Spirit and determination got us back into it," said Smith. "I'm a wee bit frustrated but happy to get a point in the end."
As for Laszlo? Not happy. Not happy at all.

Taken from the Scotsman