Hearts’ Poor Form Continues Against United

Concerns that the Hearts players have been putting their feet up a bit since opening up a huge gap between themselves and the teams below them a few weeks ago were only further justified last night with another lacklustre performance, this time against fourth-placed Dundee United at Tannadice.

We’ve recently been asking the question of just what the main reason has been for Hearts’ alarmingly poor form since the turn of the year, and despite the fact that there are many contributing factors affecting this – especially injuries to key players – the main one that seems to have most of the fans talking is the apparent lack of hunger that now seems to be in evidence among the players. It’s almost as if they are already on their summer holidays having taken for granted that third place is their own, and aren’t the slightest bit interested in attempting to finish as close as they possibly can to the Old Firm teams above them.

If this is indeed true and at least some of the players have switched off a bit, then surely last night’s 2-0 defeat at Tannadice is going to give them a serious wake-up call? I know that the gap is still a minimum of nine points (if United win their game in hand), but if Hearts do continue playing like this then they could yet end up having to scrap all the way to retain their current league position, even if this would require the likes of United to go on the sort of run that Hearts did at the end of last year.

But even if third place is indeed a formality, it’s still disappointing to see Hearts going down so tamely to average opposition at the moment. As discussed last week, the squad at JJ’s disposal does not boast the necessary strength in depth to put in a sustained championship challenge at the moment, but the players deputising for the likes of Kyle, Wallace and Skacel when they’re not available really should be capable of producing performances at a level above what we’ve been seeing lately.

Still, there’s always the next game isn’t there? A scintillating attacking performance and a win by a six goal margin this weekend will no doubt have everyone (well ok not everyone…just Hearts fans!) waxing lyrical again about how fantastic a team we are. Is that going to happen? Well….the only time I’ve ever seen us giving St Mirren such a doing was back in 1988 at Love Street (I don’t believe my feet have ever truly thawed out from that freezing afternoon, either!), so the answer is probably ‘no’. I’m thinking that any sort of victory would do given the way things have been going lately……..onwards and upwards…..