Scottish Media V Hearts (Round 3,562!)

Well, it’s no real surprise that the gutter press are having an absolute field day attempting to write a few coherent paragraphs about our football team’s ‘disgrace’ against Aberdeen at the weekend, but you’d like to think that they’d at least even attempt to get some of their reporting to look impartial before flogging it to the nation wouldn’t you?

We keep hearing from our patronising pals in the west that football is a game ‘all about opinions’, but unfortunately many who pick up their morning papers in this country tend to form theirs after reading the comments of others, despite the fact that in some cases those behind these influencing articles were probably in the pub watching the results coming in on Gillette Soccer Saturday right alongside them!

One article in particular about the Hearts players’ behaviour on Saturday was quite hilariously dramatic, with words like ‘punches’ and ‘headbutting’ typed in upper case for extra emphasis and ‘shock value’. Oh – and instead of being Scotland’s in-form team, Hearts are now referred to as ‘Laszlo’s disgraced side’.

Of course in reality, when you get an aggressive game like the one at Pittodrie on Saturday, there are always two sides to any incident that occurs in the game, and when you read the comments from some of those at Tynecastle in relation to them, they predictably bear very little resemblance to some of the match reports published in yesterday’s press. Funny that.

It’s very clear from those comments that the Hearts players and management are far from happy with the performance of old foe Iain Brines, a man straight out of the Hugh Dallas school of Headmaster-esque refereeing. They have very good cause to feel aggrieved too, if some of the TV pictures I’ve seen are anything to go by.

Captain Christophe Berra said:

“After I got my yellow card I was scared to make a challenge.

“I felt if I made another challenge I was going to be sent off. That affected my game.

“I don`t think my yellow card was deserved. Even the free-kick for Aberdeen`s goal was never a foul in a million years.

“I just stood my ground, protected myself and won the ball. Lee Miller went over, but people do that to Christian Nade. He`s a big strong boy, though, and he never gets those decisions.

“There`s so much I want to say – but I can`t.

“We have to deal with this like men. But there`s a lot of frustration and anger in our dressing room.”

It’s little surprise that Berra is having to bite his tongue here, given the number of times that Hearts have been taken to task by the SFA over comments made about some of their representatives. Fair play to him for keeping the lid on his real feelings about what went on out there, something that his manager Laszlo just about managed to do too:

“I don`t know why Lee Wallace was red-carded. You must ask the referee,’ said the Hearts boss.

“He just came into the dressing room and he had a conversation with Lee. He told me he`d given him a red card.

“Robbie Neilson was also booked at the end. They told me somebody had kicked Robbie from behind and that Robbie had turned and looked. Because of his movement he was yellow carded.

“I don`t know what happened. I didn`t ask the referee and I didn`t make any comment to him.

“After the game you have so many emotions, but I think we must show a little more balance.

“It is not necessary for the referee to come into our dressing room.

“The players were very aggressive. The dressing rooms here are very close and somebody pushed another. Then in came the referee and he gave the red card to Lee Wallace.

“I am sorry about this. But he is a young player and he must learn.

“Normally all the players have a discipline. But at the moment I`m not thinking about punishing these players.

“There were a lot of funny things in the game. I thought that for most of the time we played 11 v 11 we had more ball control and tried to come back.

“That is the most important thing for me.”

Laszlo’s comments actually imply much more about what he really thinks of certain things than he acknowledges directly, especially in relation to Brines’ apparently non-customary appearance in the Hearts dressing room. It’s alleged that Lee Wallace called him a name to which he objected, hence the red card after the final whistle. What a shame that the two of them couldn’t discuss it properly as players and refs used to be able to do 20-30 years ago – these days it’s just as pathetic as the cheating antics we see in and around the penalty area from players more intent on diving than playing football.

As for Hearts and their allegedly ‘aggressive’ attitude, well, I still don’t really see it myself. All they’ve done here and in recent matches is attempt to stand up to physically stronger opponents by matching the level of effort being displayed in the other half of the field. Generally our team are NOT as physically strong as they could be (contrary to what everyone in the press will tell you) and so they have to work very hard not to be bullied out of matches in the manner that they were so often earlier in the season. If that means they have to start getting a little nastier (which I still haven’t seen evidence of by the way) then all well and good – it’s about time that our players started seriously mixing it with some other teams, although I do appreciate that this could be a double-edged sword in that the match officials will come down on us ever harder than they are already. Frankly though, I’d rather risk this happening than simply rolling over and accepting defeat happily, which is clearly something that Csaba will never condone from his teams.

Roll on the derby…