Dunfermline V Hearts Preview

Life after Paul Hartley begins for Hearts tomorrow when they travel to East End Park for what could be an intriguing contest against Dunfermline.

For the hosts the Scottish Cup will be a welcome distraction for what has to date been a pretty miserable SPL campaign. New manager Stephen Kenny inherited a pretty difficult state of affairs from Jim Leishman a short time ago, with the Pars already languishing at the bottom of the league and the side in desperate need of some freshness. Kenny seems to be slowly providing that and they have made some potentially astute signings, particularly that of Stephen Glass from Hibs who is a player I’ve always rated very highly. However any new manager needs time and as far as staying in the SPL is concerned, he may not have enough to keep them up this season. Time will tell, but even if the worst scenario does happen, I can’t see too many people blaming Kenny for it.

But the Scottish Cup allows them to relax and just go out there and play their football. We know they can do that, as their performance against Rangers in the last round will testify, so this game is in my opinion an extremely tricky tie for Hearts.

What of the visitors? Well this will be our first game since Paul Hartley departed for Celtic, but although many are seeing this as some sort of disaster, I think that’s over-dramatising things a little. The fact is that during the transfer window, Hearts have sold one international player and have brought in another four, so we should give the new boys a chance before giving into the hysteria being created over Hartley’s sale by the Scottish media.

Hearts are on a decent run at the moment and although they’ve not played fantastically well in any of their games in the winter period, they’ve done enought to suggest that they’re capable of another decent cup run. However tomorrow is a big test for them, despite what some fans are saying about it being an ‘easy’ draw. It’s nothing of the sort.

Craig Gordon is back in the squad tomorrow, although no doubt we’ll have to wait right up until kick-off to see if he’s actually in the team or not! Sadly Bruno Aguiar and Christophe Berra are struggling with injuries and are not expected to make it, so there could be starting places for both Julien Brellier and new signing Laryea Kingston.

The Pars will have Phil McGuire and Darren Young available again after injury and suspension respectively, but will be without Greg Shields, Sol Bamba, Jamie Harris, Scott Thomson and Freddie Daquin through injury. Stephen Glass is unfortunately cup-tied.

A large crowd is expected to descend upon East End Park tomorrow, with the visitors having already sold out their allocation more than a week ago. Let’s hope that the Pars fans can also turn out in good numbers to make it a real cup-tie atmosphere.

C’mon the Hearts!