Paulo Sergio hopes resilient Hearts can defy the odds again

STUART BATHGATE
Published on Saturday 14 April 2012 03:01

PAULO Sergio is convinced his Hearts team have proven the doubters wrong a couple of times already this season.

Now the manager hopes his players will do it a third time by overcoming the odds tomorrow and beating Celtic in the Scottish Cup semi-final.

The Tynecastle side were supposedly in freefall late last year after a run of demoralised performances and poor results. They recovered.

Their season was in danger of ending prematurely a few weeks ago, as their place in the top six was in doubt and they failed to beat St Mirren at the first time of asking in the Scottish Cup quarter-final. They won the replay in Paisley, and ended the pre-split fixtures comfortably clear of seventh-placed Kilmarnock.

Sergio is quietly proud of those achievements, but he sees no reason to stop there. He conceded that his team may only beat Celtic once or twice out of every ten meetings, but is sure that tomorrow's game at Hampden can be one of those occasions.

"I can work very hard, very seriously every single day, to make my players believe that Sunday is going to be that day," the Portuguese manager said yesterday. "Work hard every single day, create a strategy and a strong idea that this is the way we're going to do it.

"Make them believe, and after that it's up to the players to put that into practice and show to me the idea is good. If they show to me the idea is not good, we change. So we are working on a Plan A and a Plan B for Sunday.

"We are in the semi-final, and two or three weeks ago people were afraid we wouldn't make the top six," he continued. "We reached the split 11 points ahead of the team in seventh – 11 points, that's a lot. And we are one point behind fifth, two points behind the team in fourth. So, with all that we've been through this season, our injuries and our problems, I think we can speak positively about this season.

"A semi-final will be good, but it's not the end of the line. I hope next week we can be speaking about the Scottish Cup again, looking forward to a final.

"Has it been a great season, though? I would never say great, because I am ambitious and I want always more. But I think we have to speak very positively about the campaign.

"It has been a tougher job than I expected, because of all the reasons you know. But nobody promised me that this was going to be a fairytale."

Nine Hearts players are just a booking away from missing the final, but Sergio has warned them not to take that threat into account when they face Celtic. If they do, he explained, they might find themselves missing out on the final, should Hearts get there, even if they avoid a yellow card. "If they are going to be careful because of a yellow card, maybe they can't play 100 per cent of their effort," he said. "And if we don't play 100 per cent, we're not going to be in the final.

"If I have one or two doing that, and we win the game and we go to the final, maybe they don't play the final – even if they don't get a yellow card. I'm not saying that I want them to get a yellow card, but come on. Every single day you go to do your job you have to give 100 per cent. It's a massive chance for everybody to play on a day like this."

Of the nine, Jordan Morton, who made his club debut against Auchinleck Talbot, is unlikely to be in Sergio's squad of 16. But the others – Rudi Skacel, Darren Barr, Andrew Driver, Danny Grainger, Scott Robinson, Suso Santana, David Templeton and Marius Zaliukas – are all likely to figure. Templeton only resumed training this week after injury, but Sergio could play the winger from the start and see how long his match fitness holds up. Suso would be on the bench to replace him, having been used as an impact substitute to good effect in last month's Edinburgh derby, when he came on as stoppage time began and scored the second goal in Hearts' 2-0 win. Craig Beattie, who scored the first goal against Hibs in that win, is officially a doubt, but such is his value to the team he looks sure to start.

At the other end of the pitch from the striker, Andy Webster has become no less valuable to Hearts. The centre-half, who won the cup with Dundee United two years ago and was a Hearts player but sat out the final in 2006, accepted that beating Celtic was going to be a tough challenge, but insisted it was one he and his team-mates would relish. "We'll put pressure on ourselves to perform well, but Celtic have done exceptionally well this season and they are a very good team," Webster said. "They've won the league, they can score goals and they have quality players. We're not naive enough to think Sunday won't be a massive task. But it's something we're going to relish."

Taken from the Scotsman