John McGlynn hopeful that home win will set Hearts off on a winning run

By STUART BATHGATE
Published on Monday 22 October 2012 00:24

JOHN McGlynn hopes that the morale boost from yesterday’s 1-0 win over Motherwell can help his Hearts team set off on a run of improved form.

The home victory was the Edinburgh side’s first in the league since the opening day of the season and has lifted them to within a point of the top six.

“We’ll get a lot of confidence from the win and we need to build on that,” McGlynn said. “We have Ross County here on Saturday – they’re a good side and a very experienced side. However, if we get three points, we’ll be on the 15-point mark after 11 games, and that would not be far away from the target we set. We understand there are points we’ve thrown away. We feel we can do better in the next set of games, so roll on Saturday.”

As well as mentioning those dropped points, McGlynn added that his team had also played well in some previous games without any reward.

“There is not an awful lot of difference in any single game – in fact we may well have played better and lost. There are very thin margins in every SPL game, and the goal was the difference.

“We’re very happy to win the football match. The performance was good, and the goal was worthy of winning any match.

“After that we were very solid and dogged, and worked extremely hard. I thought it was an end-to-end game, and Motherwell caused us one or two problems, but the clean sheet is everything today. The back four were immense.”

Goalscorer Danny Grainger, a member of that back four, said he took more pride in the defensive effort than he did in his goal, a superb strike from some distance outside the penalty area.

“It’s obviously nice to get a goal,” the left-back said. “I’m more delighted with the clean sheet, to be honest. As a defender it’s always nice to get a clean sheet, and if you can chip in with a few goals it’s obviously good, but a clean sheet’s the main thing.

“It felt good when I hit it and I was just delighted to see it hit the back of the net. I’m happy it ended up in the goal and not in the top of the stand endangering the Motherwell fans,” he joked.

Motherwell manager Stuart McCall argued that his team had been worthy of a draw, and suggested they could have had a first-half penalty after Andy Webster had made contact with Michael Higdon while jumping to head clear. “I don’t think any more than a point but I certainly think the performance merited a point,” he said. “We’ve lost to a terrific goal on their behalf, poor from us – we’ve got to close the ball.

“Hearts are a good side. There’s nothing in this league, and it’s no disgrace to come here and get beat, because they’ve got good individual players as we have.

“Other than not defending at the goal, I felt we played our part in a decent game.

“I’ve just watched [the penalty incident] again, and I think, if it’s outside the box, he gives a free-kick. I’m not one to whinge but, having seen it again, it does look as if a penalty would have been a fair decision. Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t.”

However, Higdon himself was in no doubt that he should have been awarded a spot-kick. “I’t’s a stonewall penalty if you ask me,” the striker said. “He’s come right through the back of me.

“I don’t think I got much off the referee today. Big Suttie [Hearts striker John Sutton] has come on later and got three or four fouls right away. It always helps if the referee is 50-50.” added Higdon.

Taken from the Scotsman