Hearts 1 - Dundee United 0

Before we start, I know that the scoreline above is the wrong way round. I made the mistake with my Pre-Match report and I’m just trying to achieve some consistency. Well, that was a bit of a thriller, culminating with Hearts moving up to 5 points clear and Aberdeen breathing down Dundee’s neck.

It must be said that maybe Mikey Stewart isn’t as useless as I may have suggested this morning, picking up the goal with Andy Driver picking up the assist.

Just before I start the in depth look at the match, can I say that I’ve seen North American Ice Hockey matches less vicious than what I watched today. Two Yellow cards and 4 fouls in less than 5 minutes? Wow.

The first half was a pretty close affair, I believe I stated that it was quote “poor” by the time Half Time rolled around. Hearts had gone with a 4-4-1-1, the formula we all know to be useless. This had put Adrian Mrowiec up front for (I believe) his first start for Hearts. And what a poor start it was > often in the wrong place at the wrong time and regularly having to scramble for the ball. Had he started with an experienced striker (no laughing at the back) next to him up front, he might have showed some promise. That possibility has been tossed out the window how ever after Mrowiec was stretchered off during the second half (this would normally lead to some criticism of an SFA employee but I’m saving that for last). Aside from this, it was fairly even. Hearts couldn’t break the Arabs defence and Dundee United couldn’t get the ball past the golden hands of Janos Balogh. What must be said though was the Hearts continued to look weak in the air with the Tangerine’s winning most of, if not all of the headers. This is something that must be worked on.

The second half was better. Hearts were regularly getting the ball forward and pushing the Arab defence back. Eventually, these relentless assaults led to a goal with Mikey Stewart hammering a shot along the ground straight at the Dundee United keeper…before trying again and putting it in the back of the net. It was at this point that things got worrying - Hearts fell back into the same groove that they had in the Aberdeen and St. Mirren games, letting the Dundee forwards and midfield hit them again and again, only just getting the ball away. This kept happening right up until full time. It was during this horrifying 20 minutes or so that Dundee United won a very suspicious looking penalty (I must admit I was praying that the linesman would take it away, wouldn’t you?). Sandanza (those at the match will know him as the overgrown ball boy wearing the tangerine) went for the bottom left corner and Balogh made the diving save. Say what you want about the rest of the Hearts organisation, but you cannot doubt that there are a safe pair of hands between the posts. It must be said that any advice John Robertson gave to the Dundee United strikers was pretty useless - either Robbo’s getting senile, or he told the Arab’s strikers that the goal was in fact 12 feet higher than they thought it was.

The Ref was (as usual) poor, (maybe I should rename the blog “Ref Haters R’ Us”?). There was the dodgy penalty decision for a start. Even from the other end of the park I could see that “Ball Boy” Sandanza had something cheeky in mind. There was also the issue with Mrowiec in the 2nd Half. After receiving his injury, he fell and lay on the ground (as you do) and the Referee failed to see this, allowing Dundee Utd to play on. It was not until after the Hearts players, fans and manager were screaming at the referee to stop play, that Mr. Smith almost tripped over Mrowiec. It was at this point that the Referee decided to stop play and allow Adrian Mrowiec to be stretchered off. I can understand that Referees can miss things (Scottish Refs more than others) but the time it took for Mr. Smith to realise that there was a genuinely injured player on the pitch was stupid. Maybe should have looked at the patch on his arm and taken its advice?

This is a piece of criticism for Dundee United and the organisation that runs it: Demolish the “Fairplay” Stand and start again. It is badly designed and is not suitable for the number of fans that it is expected to hold. I think the biggest problem is that from where I was sitting (which was front row of the second tier, about half way along) was that I was not able to see a large portion of the pitch because of the stand, a load of scaffolding and a member of the Tayside Police force. Also the toilets are too small, but it’s mostly the stand issue. How can I be expected to enjoy a match when I need X-Ray vision to see half of what’s going on!?!?! As a fellow fan once said (today in fact), “Dundee United couldn’t organise a booze up in a brewery”.

Here’s today’s match facts courtesy of the BBC:

Dundee Utd: Zaluska, Kovacevic, Wilkie, Dods, Grainger (Dixon 71), Caddis, Buaben, Gomis, Wesolowski (Conway 65), Feeney (Daly 77), Sandaza.
Subs Not Used: McGovern, Dillon, David Robertson, Shala.

Booked: Caddis, Feeney, Kovacevic, Conway.

Hearts: Balogh, Neilson, Jonsson, Karipidis, Lee Wallace, Obua, Palazuelos, Stewart, Driver, Aguiar, Mrowiec (Cesnauskis 83).
Subs Not Used: Kello, Mikoliunas, Thomson, Elliot, McGowan, Husband.

Booked: Lee Wallace, Neilson.

Goals: Stewart 62.

Att: 8,529

Ref: E Smith.

My favorite quote overheard at the match: “Get back in your box Levein!”

My Man of the Match: Janos Balogh for countless stunning saves and saving a Dundee United penalty.

A Very Happy Believer

Those of you who took a nervous glance at the SPL table this morning will know that this match is actually important. Hearts hold a very slim and tender 2 point hold on the 3rd spot, with Dundee United sitting right behind in 4th. Both teams need to win this match, particularly with the next few fixtures being so difficult for both teams and with Aberdeen sitting 2 points behind Dundee Utd. Aberdeen have what should be an “easy” game for them with a home match against Killmarnock.

As Csaba has said on the Hearts website, this match doesn’t decide who gets to play in Europe next year, but it will be a big player psychologicaly in the comming weeks. It is likley all eyes will be on Tannadice today with this being the biggest and most important match in the SPL this week.

Hearts have been on good form recently with silly mistakes costing them all 3 points last week against St. Mirren. Dundee Utd. drew with Aberdeen last weekend and lost to Hamilton the week before, not quiet as good as Hearts, but past form doesn’t mean to much in the SPL. I cannot stress how important this match is and how gut-wrenching it will be for those who are watching it, both who are wearing Maroon and and those who are wearing Tangerine.

Hearts will be without Kingston who worsened his Ham-string injury as a sub in last week’s match against St. Mirren. Nade is also out after reaching his disciplinary points limit. As such, Csaba seems to have gone with Calum Elliot up front along with Glen. Although this seems to have come from left-field, the only other choice would have been to gone back to a 4-5-1 formation (which as we all know didn’t work). Maybe Elliot can bring something new to the table, that je ne sais quoi that Hearts need. According to the BBC, Mikey Stewart is also in the lineup. Those of you that read this regularly will know my opinion about Stewart starting for Hearts. He should not - simple as that. Despite his error last week, I think Mikoliunas should be starting for Hearts again.

Here’s the expected lineups, courtesy of the BBC:

Dundee Utd: Zaluska, Dods, Dillon, Kenneth, Wilkie, Dixon, Kovacevic, Caddis, Grainger, Buaben, Gomis, Wesolowski, McCord, Shala, Conway, Feeney, Daly, Sandaza, D Robertson, McGovern.

Hearts: Balogh, Neilson, Jonsson, Karipidis, Wallace, Obua, Stewart, Aguiar, Palazuelos, Driver, Kello, Cesnauskis, Thomson, Mrowiec, Elliot, Templeton, Mikoliunas, McGowan.

My prediction: 1-1, neither team will be able to get past each other’s defence.

Previous results this season: Dundee Utd 3-0 Hearts, Hearts 0-0 Dundee Utd
Also - Coral give odds of 10/1 that Driver scores from outside the box…we’ll see.

A few weeks ago, BBC Sport had a blog post all about the superstitions and pre-match rituals of football players. There was everything ranging from the traditional lucky underpants to eating the same meal every evening before a match. This got me thinking about my superstitions with Sport and it seems that I’m close to bringing rabbits feet to the match!

One of the superstitions I regret not abiding by related to the US Ice Hockey Team I support: The Philadelphia Flyers. During April and May of this year, they were in the knockout, best of 7 game playoffs that lead up to the Stanley Cup finals (also a best of 7 game playoff). In the first two rounds, the Flyers swept past the opposition. They lost the first game in both series however and I believed this was because I had a Flyers related wallpaper on my computer desktop. I changed the wallpaper both times, and the Flyers won the series. When it came time for the Sem-Finals, my computer had stopped working…with a Flyers wallpaper still up. I wasn’t able to get the wallpaper down and the Flyers lost the series to the most hated rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins (The Hibs of Ice Hockey).  This only fueled my sports superstition.

Another example relates to my Dad. Last season, we went to see Rangers play Hearts at Tynecastle and the JT’s won 4-2 in what was quiet a thriller. This may not seem unusual, but my Dad had forgotten his Hearts scarf. So far this season, my Dad has been to see Hearts loose to Dundee Utd. at Tannadice 3-0, Hearts draw with Dundee Utd. 0-0 at Tynecastle and Hearts most recent draw with St Mirren and at all three matches he had worn his scarf. Now, just in case he’s reading this, I’m not saying my Dad is unlucky, just his Hearts scarf. So I’m tempted to ask him not to bring it next time.

If this sounds a little harsh, I have a self imposed ban relating to the Hearts strip. I happen to own both the home and away strips but I refuse to wear them to a match because I suspect it will be unlucky.

This may be a strange cornucopia of superstitions (I’ll be eating powdered horseshoe with my match day pie next…) but without them, Hearts might not be where they are now…

…although, Maybe Hearts would doing better without my superstitions? I hadn’t thought of that…

A Very Superstitious Believer

Whoops! Forgot to do a post-match report. I imagine everyone knows what’s happened. But here’s some bullet points of what happened:

• Average game, Hearts dominated
• M. Stewart was very poor, should not have started for Hearts. He was eventually subbed for Miko.
• Miko was fantastic when he came back on again for Hearts, helping to get Hearts first goal from Jonsson (despite making a hash of an Obua cross which would have been the winner)
• Hearts fell back to defensive style, unable to get the ball up the pitch and away from St. Mirren, leading to a Buddies goal in injury time.
• Referee was an absolute numpty, clearly not knowing the rules for corners or throw-ins, making a hash of both of them through out the match.
• Glen received a head injury and was subbed at Half - Time and Kingston was stretchered off after injuring his hamstring again.

So, in other words: it was poor, Stewart was the worst, Miko should play again, the referee was an idiot…but Hearts stay in 3rd.

On a lighter note, when you see the gaffer jumping up and down and shaking his fists, should we be worried? It can sometimes be entertaining to have a glance at Csaba during a Match, he’s often doing something odd.

Time for an important match (Yes, we get it, everyone has made that quiet clear). Anyway, the point that seems to be cropping up is how tired St. Mirren will be for this match. Rubbish, if the St. Mirren players can’t play two 90 minute matches within two days of each other, they don’t deserve to be called athletes. Anyway, it’s St. Mirren’s fault for asking on such short notice so they could get oodles of money so there.

So, now on to the pre-match where I’m going to ignore saying that St. Mirren will be tired. More likely is that they will be buoyed up by it and will be carrying the momentum from a good win over Motherwell in the Scots Cup. If Hearts can keep on doing what they were doing against Aberdeen, it should be a good game. The 4-4-2 (or whatever twisted version of it Csaba came up with) works very well with this Hearts squad, particularly when there’s a reluctance from most Hearts players to shoot the ball. As such, Csaba should keep the same squad as last week, with the exception of Michael Stewart. Unless he’s improved in training, his reluctance to make the harder challenges when they’re needed are hurting the squad and giving the opposition more chances than they should have. Once Miko gets back, Stewart should be benched, that’s the gist of it.

One point of nervous speculation over this match is Balogh, Driver and Karipidas who were ill during the week. According to the BBC, they should be fine for the match…we’ll see. Also, Laryea Kingston is out with his injury bouncing in and out of the squad.

Here’s the predicted line-ups, courtesy of the BBC:

Hearts: Balogh, Neilson, Jonsson, Karipidis, Wallace, Obua, Stewart, Aguiar, Palazuelos, Driver, Nade, Kello, Glen, Cesnauskis, Thomson, Mrowiec, Elliot, Templeton.

St Mirren: Howard, Ross, Potter, Cuthbert, Camara, Barron, McGinn, Thomson, Murray, Dorman, Brady, Hamilton, Mehmet, Smith, Wyness, Mason, McAusland, Brighton.

On the two previous occasions, Hearts have come better off, winning 2-1 at home and 1-0 away.

My Prediction:…difficult one. Trying to come up with one that isn’t the usual “1-0″ or “2-1″…

I’m gonna stick my head above the parapet and say Hearts win 2-0. It’s nothing like the BBC’s prediction of 1-1 but I don’t think St. Mirren will have the attacking capability to break through the Hearts defence or midfield.

A slightly shortchanged Believer