Sunday’s derby defeat set off alarm bells for Hearts – but don’t for a second tell me the balance of power in Edinburgh has swung to Leith.
Hibs have been the better side in the fixture this season but fans claiming they are now the number one force in the city? Ridiculous. They need another four or five years of winning these games before they can even try to lay claim to the capital crown. History tells you Hearts have won 149 to Hibs’ 89. They’re miles behind us.
But I’ll tell you what, this was a wake up call. Hearts must ensure they get top six to guarantee another crack at the noisy neighbours – and a chance of securing that 150th derby win in their 150th anniversary season. That would deliver a reality check to those Hibees claiming they run the city now.
The manner of Sunday’s defeat was really worrying. Like the Boxing Day clash at Tynecastle, David Gray’s side showed a bigger appetite for the fight. That’s unforgivable. There’s a pattern developing too because Hearts have fallen well short in the big games this season.
Out of 11 matches against the top four sides – two against Celtic and three against Rangers, Hibs and Aberdeen – they have won NONE. That proves they’ve simply not been good enough and they’ve not got enough about them in the big games.
I actually thought Hearts controlled the first half on Sunday and were in a great position to go and win the game at half time. But it all fell apart after the interval. Straight from the start of the second half, you just felt Hibs were at it. They had that mindset that ‘if there’s anybody going to win this, it’s going to be us’.
Who do you blame for that? Listen, it’s right to question the tactical stuff about the press and the set-up of the team after the break. But for me it comes on the park – big players on the pitch have to dictate what happens.
I read Jorge Grant admitting afterwards that Hibs have wanted it more in the derbies this season. Good honesty. But a completely unacceptable reason.
Ultimately you could have Jose Mourinho in the dug out, you can have all the stats, all the GPS underneath their shirts and how much they run and all the sports scientists saying ‘well he’s had his chicken and his pasta and his bit of fruit and he’s took his electrolytes’. But see in your heart, if you’re not 100 per cent up for the fight and you don’t have the will to win, it’s irrelevant.
Yes, you have to be composed and you have to play your football. But it’s lost if you don’t have the fundamental desire to win.
There were times back when I played where Billy Brown or Jim Jefferies would shout something to us and we would turn around and go, ‘never mind him, we need to do this because right now we’re in the middle of it, so we need to do X, Y and Z’.
We had players on the park who would dictate that and then we would argue about it later on. But we had the confidence, awareness and the understanding of how to win games, even when we weren’t playing well.
I just think Hearts looked too nice, too quiet, too passive on Sunday. There wasn’t really anybody that wanted to lay a glove on anybody, which again is a big thing.
The winner is a great strike from Jack Iredale but it kind of summed Hearts up. If Lawrence Shankland burst his a***e for another half a yard, it wouldn’t have happened. That was the tale of the second half. They were a half a yard on it and Hearts were a half a yard off it.
Hearts just looked as if they accepted a draw and, worse, that they were going to lose the game after Iredale’s strike.
That kind of attitude would have seen some of my team mates scrapping in the changing room 15 years ago. Guys like Andy Webster, Jamie Hamill, Danny Grainger, myself, Rudi Skacel to a certain extent, would not have accepted that.
There’s rightly question marks over the big game temperament of this squad. You’re naturally going to be under the cosh in these games. Can you deal with the pressure?
I think the manager has done a great job since he came in. But he’ll know himself that when the chips are down and the backs are against the wall, his side fold far too easily.
He’s needing big characters so we’ll see who steps up at Tynecastle on Friday night. A chance to get to Hampden is a good way to bounce back from Sunday. If they don’t get a result, everything turns again.
But I expect them to take care of Dundee. When this Hearts side are at it, they’re a really, really good team.
They just need to produce it every time they cross the line. And prove they can handle the pressure.