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.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 11:30 am and is filed under Pre-Match. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.