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

By Jove! I think they’ve got it! A stunning 2-1 win over the Dons and a fantastic effort from the Jambos!

Aberdeen scored first 19 minutes in and it was pretty close up till then, Aberdeen getting the lucky break when they took the lead.Now in the past, the Jambo’s would normally capitulate/give up/roll over and die. But not today! They thundered back and dominated the second half resulting in an equalizer from Christian Nade 1 minute before HT. This didn’t stop in the second half either. Hearts were quiet willing to kick the Dons when they were down. Hearts pushed and pushed and Andy Driver headed in the winner after 66 minutes (which FINALY shut up the noisy Dons fans).

The domination continued until the 80th minutes when things got a little scary and Aberdeen began one last-ditch attempt to equalize. The closest they got was hitting the post and Balogh nabbing it before an Aberdeen striker could lay his feet on it. With 5 minutes left, Hearts could have scored again with Aberdeen looking shell shocked but they chose to waste time (resulting in a couple of bookings).

The refereeing in this match was almost as terrible as last week. Aberdeen players could have sharpened the studs on their boots and carried swords and gotten away with it. As one person behind me pointed out: “Are you getting payed by the foul?” in reference to the Dons going down easy. It also struk me as odd when 5 Aberdeen players were “injured” whenever Hearts reached the Don’s box. Coincidence? I think not, but Aberdeen players are clearly very brittle.

It’s not all good news though. Despite a great game from the JT’s they were still prone to sloppy mistakes and a reluctance to shoot the ball. I also think that Mikey Stewart should probably give the next few games a miss. He’s becoming to reluctant to get stuck in with the tackles and often hesitates, dancing round the opposition rather than trying to get the ball. Obua is becoming a waste of space as well. His style of “clever” and “tricky” play does not suit the Scottish game. As soon as Miko gets better, he needs to replace either Stewart or Obua and maybe giving Chesney a start.

On a related note, Mike Tulberg (who was supposed to be back this week) will supposedly return next week for the match against St. Mirren. How long has he been out? I can’t honestly remember when he last played for Hearts. Maybe he’s the miracle Hearts have been waiting for though. It will hopefully create some competition amongst Nade, Glen and Tulberg for regular starts for Hearts. It could be beneficial having more Strikers than we actually need, much like the goalie situation - they play above and beyond the call of duty, knowing that they might not be playing in the next match.

My man of the match is Janos Balogh for some stunning goalkeeping

Match Facts courtesy of the BBC:

Hearts: Balogh, Neilson, Karipidis, Jonsson, Lee Wallace, Obua, Stewart, Aguiar, Driver, Glen (Palazuelos 81), Nade (Mrowiec 90).
Subs Not Used: MacDonald, Cesnauskis, Thomson, Elliot, Templeton.

Booked: Nade, Stewart.

Goals: Nade 45, Driver 66.

Aberdeen: Langfield, Foster, Diamond, Severin, Mulgrew, Young (Considine 76), Kerr, Duff (Maguire 76), Vidal, Miller, Mackie (Wright 79).
Subs Not Used: Bossu, Stewart, Paton, Pawlett.

Booked: Foster.

Goals: Mackie 20.

Att: 15,049

Ref: C Richmond

A very happy Believer

Apologies for not putting up an update since Monday. I’ve spent this time trying to put my frustration into words. So far all I’ve been able to come up with is a few mumbled expletives and some cursing. We head into the Scottish Cup 5th round without a striker or a replacement for Berra. According to the Scotsman, this was because of someone, (either in the higher ups at Tynecastle or in Slovakia) doesn’t know how to use a fax machine. In their defence, I wouldn’t know how to use a Fax machine as in the world of technology, it is officially “antiquated”. Why couldn’t they have sent the relevant paperwork by e-mail? I assume both clubs have a computer connected to the web, a printer and a scanner? It’s not really worth thinking about to be honest. All that we know is that Hearts and/or Slovakia made a hash of the Transfer proceedings and were stuck with what we’ve got.

Since the Transfer window slammed (with a disgustingly hollow clang) shut, the Scotsman hasn’t given a decent story about the JT’s all week. They seem adamant to repeat the same quotes and useless insight about Hearts failing to sign anyone and how this will be bad by the time May roles around. They were even forced to turn to a Hearts fan for some insight into tomorrows match against Falkirk, clearly the journalists have “better” things to do. However, I totally agree with his opinion about what Hearts need to be doing - an attacking mentality with a 4-4-2 formation and a positive attacking mentality. I couldn’t agree more with this analysis and I’ve been stressing the need for a 4-4-2 for months now.

Gary Glen is on the cover of the Souvenir Programme tomorrow. Could this be some sort of subliminal omen?

Not to toot my own horn, but I was right about Neilson becoming captain (yay me!). Despite having the slight ego boost of being right over a problem that had a pointlessly obvious solution, I’m still very disappointed that Berra left. It’ll probably be Jonsson replacing him in defence.

I’ll have a pre-match report ready for tommorow morning.

…Not very good at all. Hearts were beaten (maybe routed ist the better word) 2-0 by little upstarts Hamilton who extend their terrific form. Hamilton were all over the JT’s for almost all of the 90 minutes knocking in two goals and making Hearts look generally silly.

If any blame is going  to put anywhere, I’d put on the defence (not that the rest of the team were really much better). First, although MacDonald is a good young goalie, he hasn’t had the regular experience that Balogh has had and it appears his experience was missed today. The back 4 will have had their issues as well. Only Neilson and Wallace have had any regular first team appearances with Zaluikas and Jonsson filling in the gaps when they appeared. Not having Berra probably hurt, and the new defensive set up will need some time to gel, but this should get better over time.

This match is probably another in a long list of arguments for changing the set up of the squad. The 4-5-1 formation allows for dominance of the midfield and quick movement of the ball up into the opposition’s area. However, we only have one experienced striker to feed the ball to and he has a tendency to hang back a bit while the whole team have a reluctance th shoot the ball. We need a new striker with two up front, possibly working with the classic 4-4-2.

Their is some minor consolation (if you like that sort of thing). Our two main contenders for the European spot both lost today: Rangers 2-o Dundee United, Falkirk 1-0 Aberdeen with Hibs only scraping a draw with Motherwell. S0, even though Hearts suffered a bad loss today, the table stays much the same as far as Hearts are concerned.

With it looking likely that the captain will be leaving for pastures new, down at Wolverhampton, Hearts are going to need to work extraordinarily hard in the next couple days to sign in a striker, and maybe a replacement for Berra. If Berra does go, Csaba apparently has someone in mind: “I have one player, a very talented player, who is an international with his country, played Champions League and UEFA Cup and is 23 years old”

Maybe we could somehow label Vlad with the blame, as he decided to show his face at the match after arriving in Edinburgh for transfer talks. Maybe he jinxed it? You decide.

The next match is in a week against Falkirk in the 5th Round of the Scottish Cup at Tynecastle. Lets hope Csaba and the gang can get it together for then.

Scorers: Mensing 11, pen 52