St Johnstone 2 Hearts 0

Ewing Grahame

On the evidence of Sunday's visit to Perth, Hearts are no closer to finding a cure for their travel sickness. The Edinburgh club have now gone 15 matches in all competitions since they last won on the road.

Hearts manager Paulo Sergio, who made eight changes for the midweek Scottish Communities League Cup defeat at Ayr, went one better at McDiarmid Park, with nine alterations to that starting 11, but once more his tinkering proved fruitless.

The tactical equivalent of violent mood swings did little for the fluency of the visitors' play: they stuttered and stumbled from the first whistle, often missing out the midfield entirely as they hoofed the ball from back to front.

The Portugese saw it differently, of course. "We must have had 60 per cent of the possession," he claimed, implausibly. "But that's not enough: we have to score.

"We are putting ourselves under pressure and giving confidence to our opponents by making the mistakes which give them goals. Our goalkeeper hasn't made a save but he's lost two goals."

Saints were first to come to life and Andy Webster was cautioned for hauling down Francisco Sandaza on the edge of the penalty area in the 19th minute.

From the resulting free-kick, Liam Craig fired in a shot which Jamie MacDonald pushed over the bar. It was a warning sign which the visitors ignored and they fell behind on the half-hour.

Sandaza turned creator on this occasion with a slide-rule pass which released Cillian Sheridan and the striker, on loan from CSKA Sofia, waited for the goalkeeper to commit himself before clipping the ball over him and into the net from 15 yards.

Craig should have doubled their advantage six minutes later when Sheridan's pass left the midfielder with only MacDonald to beat but he dragged his shot wide.

Hearts were poor but they should have equalised a minute before the interval when Peter Enckelman came for and missed a Danny Grainger corner.

Webster was left in the dressing room at the interval ("I didn't think he was doing very well," said Sergio), with Adrian Mrowiec dropping back into central defence.

The Pole was posted missing when Saints scored again, 10 minutes after the restart. Once again Sandaza was the architect, winning the ball from Jamie Hamill and playing in strike partner Sheridan, who had the composure to take the ball round MacDonald before stroking it into the unguarded net for his second goal of the campaign.

"The reason we persevered with him when he wasn't scoring is that we had him on loan [from Celtic] before and he took a wee while to get going then as well," said Saints manager Derek McInnes.

"He then went on a run and we're hoping that he can do that again. Francisco brings swagger and a lot of ability to the team but we all appreciate the work that Cillian puts in.

"Unlike last season, we're not finding goals hard to come by and that's very pleasing."

Enckelman was finally called into action 15 minutes from time when he clawed away a header from Ryan Stevenson but Hearts rarely looked like salvaging anything from this contest.

St Johnstone have now moved up to joint-fourth position alongside Hearts, with an identical goal difference but, obviously, a superior head-to- head record.

St Johnstone (4-4-2): Enckelman; Mackay, Anderson, McCracken, Maybury; Gibson (Robertson 73), Millar, Moon, Craig; Sandaza Haber 84), Sheridan. Subs: Mannus (g), Higgins, Durnan, May, McIntosh. Booked: Anderson, Millar, Mackay.

Hearts (4-3-1-2): MacDonald; Hamill, Webster (Templeton h-t), Zaliukas, Grainger; Black, Mrowiec, Obua (Smith 63); Taouil; Stevenson, Elliott (Robinson 72). Subs: Balogh (g), Novikovas, Jonsson, Skacel. Booked: Webster, Zaliukas, Taouil, Black.

Referee: S O'Reilly.

Taken from telegraph.co.uk