Watching Hearts draw nothing-nothing with Kilmarnock makes my life very difficult. I personally believe that Hearts have got the third-best set of players in Scottish League football. But Hearts don't seem to share my belief: not the players, and not the manager.
The only man with a superiority complex is Robert Tomaschek, head and shoulders (literally - he's huge) above everyone else. If Jefferies has any sense (and the sun's already up, so it's too late to start discussing that one today) he'll tell everyone to get out of Big Rab's way and do what he tells them. Then they might start getting involved in the tortuous business of scoring goals, rather than hanging back hoping that something will magically create itself. Because apart from one or two brilliant touches from Jackson and a couple of runs with menacing intent by Cameron, Hearts had nothing to offer.
At one stage it was worth considering getting Stephane Adam on and lumping the ball up the park. At least that might have given us some hope, some movement. Instead, Hearts were overrun with their own midfielders, and sometimes they stood so deep that they were supplementary defenders. So what's this all about? Why are they so worried about taking a risk, moving out of position in order to create something? It's a pretty stupid tactic in any case, as more defending players don't necessarily make Hearts more defensively secure.
Instead they were getting in each other's way, and Kilmarnock still managed to work the ball into the penalty area where the Big Rousster himself was flapping around like a wet hen, and with a small amount of bad luck the ball could have trickled into the Hearts net. Make no mistake, this was a point gained as much as two lost, and if you want to feel better about the whole deal then regard it as a valuable point gained by Kilmarnock on the sinking-fast Good Ship Leaky Tub Hibernian FC.
Jim Jefferies makes a lot of odd pronouncements in public so it's not always wise to pay them too much heed, but after the Celtic game he said 'I think we showed we're not as bad as some of the fans seem to think.' So, James old mate, what did your team show us today? Perhaps being in Glasgow at the time infected him with a touch of paranoia. But he's missing the point. Hearts fans don't think we're bad. Fans shout abuse when you're actually very good but for some odd reason you're refusing to prove it. If your team's rubbish, you sit there in silence and accept the fact - or else you simply don't turn up. Jefferies doesn't understand that it's not the fans who lack faith in the players' ability - it's the players!
Only Tomaschek took the field with the intention of proving what he knows - that he's better than the opposition. If the rest of the Hearts side had a similar sense of superiority, rather than this fear of getting beat that's holding them back, we'd blow Kilmarnock out of the water. And in fact, it's this fear of getting beat that's getting us beat - which is what happened at Rugby Park. Do we have to go two goals down before starting to be interested in scoring a goal? Get the psychologists in, quick!
Jefferies obviously want to give this tactical system a try, because neither Adam nor McSwegan is meant to be injured: so Wales is alone up front, Jackson lying deep off him, Cameron making runs from midfield, Tomaschek creating, Simpson tackling. But neither wing-back is playing well at the minute, and no-one's convinced that Simpson's up to the challenge yet. And Wales, however quick and skilful he seems, is not a natural goalscorer. The one chance of the match fell to him, and as he raced into the box he delayed his shot by half-a-second too long and was tackled.
And if Hearts have got ambitions of finishing third in the League, and by the way that everyone's beating everyone else at the minute, coupled with our superior goal difference it's not at all impossible, then we've got to stop being so punchless up front and gutless everywhere else.