Do Hearts Think They Have Nothing To Play For?

Was I the only one who sat there at Tynecastle yesterday thinking that the match against Kilmarnock was akin to watching a meaningless, end-of-season encounter involving a home side who looked as though they literally had nothing to play for?

Granted, there were some tasty moments throughout the match involving skirmishes between the players, but most of that seemed to be down to individual petulance rather than any real desire to win the game. For example Rudi Skacel’s first half challenge that somehow didn’t result in a red card was the sort of thing he occasionally (and unfortunately) does when he’s not playing well, whereas the nonsense that resulted in Seremenko being sent off is the sort of thing that can happen in any game, including friendlies. Incidentally I cannot believe that the Killie player was sent off whilst two Hearts players stayed on the park for what seemed like identical offences during the same skirmish, but that’s perhaps another discussion altogether!

But overall from a Hearts point of view, it very much looked to me as though the players were going through the motions in the knowledge that defeat in the game would not be the end of the world, and I think that’s probably what made the main difference between the two teams yesterday. Killie clearly wanted to win the game more and had players running around with the sort of urgency you’d have wanted from those in maroon. Suso and David Templeton apart, there wasn’t really much evidence of that from the home side and that was very disappointing.

The possibility of pre-mature complacency is something that I know many Hearts fans have been discussing in recent weeks, given that the initial target of securing third place in the league looks all but assured. But it would be disappointing to think that the players haven’t been setting their sights a little higher than this and doing their best to stay as close to the Old Firm as they possibly can.

I guess it comes down to one or perhaps all of the following three things:

1) the players have switched off a little in the knowledge that their job is done

2) the players do not have the belief that they can finish any higher than third

3) Hearts are just not as good a side as their earlier season results have suggested

Being perfectly honest, all three probably do apply to a certain extent. As far as being good enough is concerned, the Hearts first choice XI certainly is, but injuries to key players in recent weeks have shown us to be threadbare and have cruelly exposed our lack of squad depth, particularly in the central midfield area which has been very poor in the last couple of matches. Even when everyone is fit, Hearts clearly lack a midfield schemer in the Steve Fulton mould in my view – they really need presence in the centre of the park but generally get by without it in the SPL due to the lack of quality opposition. But yesterday Mrowiec and Stevenson were shown up a bit there I felt.

The belief thing is something that has always seemed to have been a problem with Jim Jefferies’ teams. This might be spectacularly harsh, but despite the fact that JJ has taken us to a cup win and had us top of the league in April in the past, I have always thought that his mentality has been too similar to other Scottish managers in that third place should always be the goal, with anything better being a bonus. I appreciate that this is being pragmatic and keeping expectations realistic, but if all managers continue to think this way in our country then are they ever going to change things in the way that we would all like? They’re not are they? We need someone with a bit of arrogance to come in and give the players the belief that they can do a bit more, otherwise if the manager gives off the impression that the team isn’t good enough, what do we expect the players to think? Like I said this may be harsh on JJ and it’s maybe not the case at all that he gives off these vibes in the dressing room, but on the surface it does seem like that.

Hopefully we can see a positive response from Hearts in their next few games and they can show us that they do still have the motivation to win as many of their remaining games this season as possible. They have done fantastically well to accumulate the points that they have this season – especially given where they were last year at this time – but they should be pushing themselves to see how close they can get to the Ugly Sisters, especially given Rangers’ forthcoming schedule of matches. An opportunity is still there to at least show that a team can get close to them over the course of a season…..but do Hearts believe and indeed really want to prove that they are that team? We’ll see…..