JJ angry at manner of 2-0 ‘Well defeat

I`ve decided to skip a detailed match account on this one. Suffice to say that for 30 minutes, the match was fairly even with Hearts carving out some decent attacks down the left side through Lee Wallace and David Templeton. Sadly our goal attempts from Suso, Glen and Obua were woeful – while Jamie McDonald had to make 3 very good saves to keep the Motherwell forwards at bay.

For the latter two-thirds of this match, Motherwell were better at every aspect of football than Hearts. Movement, awareness, passing, tackling, ball control, shooting – the lot.

Jim Jefferies acknowledged this when he said : “Their 2 goals were set plays but I don`t want to go on about that because Motherwell deserved to be 2 goals ahead at that point because they were better in passing and holding the ball. They worked harder and didn`t make it as easy for us as we made it for them. They had 2 strikers who were willing to battle, fight and hold – and give our defenders a torrid time, and we didn`t do that at the other end. In the middle of the park, I felt we were too far off them when they broke – we were nowhere to be seen. At the end of the day we looked like a team that had settled for getting into the Top 6, and that`s not acceptable.”

He added : “I learned a lot about these players – as much today as I have since I arrived.”

So at least JJ is aware of the shortcomings. However the crucial thing is – what will he do about it ? Perhaps he can bring a couple of new players in during the summer – but surely the skills being shown by the likes of Motherwell and Dundee United this season
must make us question why our players don`t seem able to move and pass as effectively as them. Even St. Johnstone have dominated matches against Hearts this year.

I noticed that the Motherwell substitutes half-time warm-up routing consisted entirely of a small “keep-ball” game, where 4 guys keep the ball moving among themselves in a tight circle while the 5th player tries get a touch. Could it be that Hearts don`t put as much emphasis on this type of intense short passing practice ?

There`s no doubt that Hearts strikers are central to the problem we have of competing with other teams. Any team derives confidence in themselves when they have a set of forwards who regularly get a few goals. Unfortunately Hearts simply cannot get a goal out of our forwards – and I think this breeds a degree of aimlessness in our play.

With 3 games remaining, it is most unlikely that Hearts will finish 5th. However the fans (and JJ) will demand that go to Easter Road and do everything we can to win – for pride if nothing else.

What do you think needs improving in the Hearts squad ?