Efficient Hearts halt their barren away run

By Paul Forsyth, at East End Park
Published on Monday 17 October 2011 12:30

GIVEN that it was the reason for his appointment in the first place, Paulo Sergio’s commitment to a more sophisticated playing style ought not to be doubted, but there are times when he has to swallow his pride.

At East End Park on Saturday, it wasn’t particularly beautiful, nor was it especially cosmopolitan, but in the circumstances, it mattered not a jot. Goals by Andy Webster and Rudi Skacel gave Hearts their first away win since February and enabled them to gather a degree of momentum hitherto lacking this season.

This was the first time since Sergio’s arrival that they have registered back-to-back wins. With just one defeat in eight league matches, a sequence that has carried them to within a point of third-placed Celtic, they are starting to look like a side who aim to be more than just a pretty face. “Sometimes in the game, you have to play ugly,” said Sergio after his team’s patience and industry had got the better of Dunfermline.

Let’s hope that his predecessor wasn’t listening to that quote. Or indeed the club’s trigger-happy owner, Vladimir Romanov, who sacked Jim Jefferies for upholding similar values. Not that Sergio seems to fear the consequences. “First of all, football is about winning and if we can do that playing very good football, it’s top,” he continued. “We try to do both things, but first you have to win.”

Hearts achieved that in Dunfermline, but not without rolling up their sleeves and grinding it out. Against opponents whose priority was to stem the flow of goals they have been conceding lately, they triumphed by sitting tight, retaining possession and waiting for their opportunities to come along. Not until Skacel scored with 14 minutes left were they able to breathe easy.

Sergio spent the afternoon alongside Iain Brines, the fourth official who upset him in his capacity as a referee at Somerset Park recently. As far as it was possible to detect, there was no animosity between the two, although it wasn’t that kind of match. Apart from a first-half injury that led to the substitution of Ian Black, the game passed off largely without incident.

Both goals were a consequence of mistakes by Dunfermline. The first arrived four minutes before half-time when Danny Grainger swung a corner into the near post. Andy Kirk, the former Hearts striker, tried to execute a first-time clearance clear by putting his foot through the ball, but succeeded only in deflecting it on to Webster. From just a couple of yards, the big defender could not miss.

Hearts’ second was the product of a misplaced pass by Paddy Boyle, the Dunfermline midfielder. David Templeton took advantage by exchanging a neat one-two with Ryan Stevenson and hitting an angled shot that broke off the goalkeeper’s body. Skacel pounced on the loose ball and sidefooted it inside the right-hand post.

Hearts may have got lucky in front of goal, but overall, it was a solid, professional performance of a kind that Dunfermline can only dream of right now. They have lost all of their last six league games, conceding 19 goals in the process, and are still without a win at home this season. After a decent start to their campaign, the newly-promoted side are just a point off the bottom of the SPL.

Jim McIntyre, their manager, said that he was encouraged by his team’s display, which said a lot about how far they have fallen recently. His new, three-man central defence was certainly an improvement on that which conceded four against both Aberdeen and Rangers, but his team offered next to nothing in attack. A couple of half chances in three second-half minutes was all that Marian Kello, the Hearts goalkeeper, had to deal with in his first game back after injury.

Kirk echoed the sentiments of his manager by insisting that his team had reason to be pleased with themselves. “There wasn’t much in the game, but a couple of mistakes cost us,” he said. “That’s just the way things are at the minute.

“Every time we make a mistake, we seem to get punished for it. But that happens in football. The higher you go, the more you get punished. The performance was a lot better. In the position we are, we have to take a lot of confidence from that.”

Unfortunately for Dunfermline, defensive lapses are not their only problem. The team with the joint-worst defensive record in the SPL have also failed to score in each of their last three matches. It is the nightmare combination, as Kirk admitted.

“As a team, we need a goal, whether it comes from a midfield player or a forward. We haven’t scored in the last few games, but we are getting into decent positions. Maybe that final ball, that final run, is just not right. We have to keep believing. We’re capable, if we put a wee run together, of staying in this league.”

Taken from the Scotsman