This lunchtime game provided riveting entertainment for the fans, with the home team leading 1-0 for over an hour despite the visitors dominating possession and posing the bigger goal threat.
Hearts played with 3 central defenders – Bouzid, Barr and Mrowiec – to try to cope with the threat posed by Miller, Naismith and Jelavic. Yet, the attacking prowess of Rangers is such that almost every player in their team looks dangerous when they get near their opponent`s box. Steven Naismith was the man who caused Hearts the most problems, with his continual movement and ball control.
Before the game, I worried about how we`d cope with the pace and skill of Vladimir Weiss on the visitor’s right wing in the absence of Lee Wallace – especially after Chris Humphrey`s success in that area last week for Motherwell. As things turned out, David Obua and Eggert Jonsson did a reasonable job in not letting him get much time to control the ball and run at speed. However, our ability to hold the ball in forward areas today was poor, with Calum Elliott and Kevin Kyle struggling to control the balls that did come through to them.
Rudi Skacel got his first start since returning to Hearts, and in only 12 minutes we were reminded of those glorious days of 4 years ago when he seemed to score so effortlessly. This time, he did what no other Hearts player seems capable of doing these days – reading the play so that he ran past Kevin Kyle to latch on to his head flick and lash the ball into the net despite being under pressure from a defender. This was the Rudi we longed to see, communing with the Wheatfield Stand as he celebrated his goal.
Even before this goal, Rangers were the more confident team – playing passes with better accuracy than Hearts and getting their men into the box. Marian Kello made a wonderful save to stop Jelavic and Bouzid compeleted the clearance. Another great save towards the end of the first half remdined us that we were a bit fortunate to go in at half-time leading 1-0.
Within 30 seconds of the re-start, Kevin Kyle could have doubled our lead, failing to connect properly with a Thomson corner at the far post. As we feared, that miss (plus a later one) was to prove costly. Rangers started to create real chances, hitting the post twice and forcing Marian Kello to make 5 excellent saves. Could Hearts hold out ? Well, the next goal was scored by Kyle – but sadly it wasn`t Kevin, but Rangers` substitute Lafferty, who drilled a free-kick inside Kello`s left-hand post. It wasn’t a great strike, but a poor Hearts defensive wall left a gap for him to shoot through.
10 minutes to go (plus injury time) – could Hearts hold out ? Kevin Kyle then missed an even better chance, firing a header on the run over the bar from 10 yards. Oh dear – these are the omens we`ve seen a hundred times in matches against the Old Firm, aren`t they ?
With almost 4 minutes of added time played, Rangers were awarded a dubious free-kick which they took quickly. The quick thinking Naismith played a “one-two” to drive into the box and wrong-foot Mrowiec before placing a good shot beyond Kello.
It`s always cruel to lose a game in injury-time, especially against the Old Firm. There`s no doubt that Hearts battled hard and gave Rangers a stern challenge. However when it came to offering a consistent goal threat, Rangers were streets ahead of us unfortunately.
Ian Black and Eggert Jonsson ran their his hearts out for the cause, but often failed to find their own men with forward passes – whereas the likes of Papac, Edu and Davis for Rangers were much more accurate. We had no-one with the menace of Naismith today, and I’d question why JJ didn`t use Templeton or Suso from the bench to offer a different type of threat than that posed by Kyle and Elliott.
Our top players were probably Kello, Mrowiec and Bouzid.
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We didn’t deserve to win this. Rangers were the better team on the day. That said, we didn’t deserve to lose either – particularly not from a free kick (that wasn’t) in the 95th minute when the game should have been over two minutes prior to that. The SFA always seem to get the result they want in the end, don’t they. Anyway the positives are: I liked the 3-5-2 formation, with Rudi playing a free role. With more match sharpness from him I think we will hurt teams, and it gives the team less predictability than lumping it up to Kyle all the time. Mrowiec had a great game, didn’t put a foot wrong as far as I could see. Negatives: Obua is pants. Sorry, but his first touch is woeful and his second is either a tackle or a foul, and his positioning (for someone who claims to be a “natural” left back) is dire. I would much rather have Jason Thomson in there while Wallace is out – at least he is a defender. Still, a two week break now and hopefully JJ can get the system tweaked a bit more, we don’t suffer any major injuries, and the players can work on their fitness as we looked knackered towards the end.
Yes, there were definitely some positives, as you say SJ. Apart from anything, the team functioned a lot better than they did against Motherwell. Black had a pretty decent game too. Poor old Mr Obua – he’s never going to be loved by the fans, is he ? Big awkard gangly bloke who would surely have been picked up by Hibs if he had been a goalkeeper !! But on his day, I reckon he’s ok … it’s just that it’s not often his day !!
Hi guys. Have to say I left with the same sense of injustice as I normally do after games against Rangers, but once you let the red mist descend you see it for what it was. If we’re honest, we were pretty poor for the most part – we afforded an average Rangers team far too much respect, so much so that they could come across the halfway line literally unchallenged for almost the entire game. We should have been in their faces more, but because we weren’t we allowed them to retain possession for long spells which just ended up knackering our players. Definitely plus points though: we still made chances despite being on the backfoot for long spell; Kello was outstanding (the shot he tipped onto the post among the best saves I’ve ever seen live) ; nice to see Rudi scoring and I also thought Black has as good a game as he’s played for Hearts. Once we have Wallace and hopefully Zaliukas back we can surely look to start going toe to toe with the likes of Rangers in the future, though….damage limitation-style performances like Saturday’s at home are a bit embarrassing….
PS that’s twice in a year that the same referee has made very poor late decisions to gift Rangers three points in this fixture. Not even playing the final minute of stoppage time after they scored was a particularly classy touch I thought!
Hearts go up one nil; Rangers at the last gasp win 2-1 (unusually this time without the need of a penalty or sending off). Nothing to see here – just the joy that is Scottish football.
Good to read the comments, guys. One thing though – I don’t buy into this “average Rangers side” stuff. Surely their expoits in the SPL and Champs League this season suggest that are a fair few notches above “average”, n’est pas ? Coming back from 1 down to win would be no big deal if it just happened once… but they’ve done it about 6 times this seaon – which suggests its not a fluke. Add to that their record in the CL…. sorry, but they’re not “average”, chaps !!
No Laudrup. No Gascoigne. No Mendez. Heck, not even Ferguson. I think the “average” epithet comes from the likes of McCulloch & Lafferty as replacements – two very “average” footballers of limited ability. That said, you are correct SH – they get the job done & “Walter” has them well enough organised that they regularly punch above their weight.