Hearts get what they deserve for petty omission of rebel Hartley

ON SATURDAY morning, Valdas Ivanauskas was singing the praises of Marius Zaliukas in a newspaper, saying the young Lithuanian could be the new Steven Pressley, the cornerstone of the Hearts defence. On Saturday afternoon, Zaliukas was playing in midfield, as petty politics again prevailed over footballing considerations at Tynecastle.

As his head coach implied, Zaliukas is indeed a promising centre-back, as well as a quick learner and a responsible team player. But if he had not been played further forward, with Julien Brellier out injured the only other option would have been to play Paul Hartley from the start. And, given Hartley was subjected to a disciplinary hearing only two days earlier, that would surely not have been permitted by the club's management.

So Zaliukas played behind Bruno Aguiar, Ibrahim Tall and Jose Goncalves formed an embarrassingly shaky centre-back pairing, and Hearts were on the back foot from the start against opponents whose confidence, already high, was further boosted by the omission of Hartley. In the circumstances - Goncalves, by his own admission, is a poor header of the ball, while Tall was simply a bundle of nerves - the home side did well to prevent Aberdeen scoring until four minutes from the end. But, for a team which could field Pressley and Andy Webster together at the start of the year, this latest tinkering was just more evidence of how badly Vladimir Romanov's project for continental supremacy has come unstuck.

After the match, Ivanauskas's attempts to explain the team selection, particularly the decision to start with Hartley on the bench, were pitifully inadequate. "Tactic," the coach said when asked why the Scotland midfielder was a substitute. When asked what that tactic had been, he first claimed it was "long to explain for you", then suggested the line-up had been picked with Aberdeen's strengths in mind. Given that Hartley, when he came on in the second half, did more than any other Hearts player to counteract those strengths, Ivanauskas's explanation rang hollow. So did his claim that the decision to omit Hartley had been his own.

In fact, since returning from sick leave, Ivanauskas's whole credibility as a coach has plummeted. If he wants to succeed in the profession, he must surely seek a post where he can stand or fall by his own decisions, instead of having his strings pulled by Hearts' majority shareholder.

What is more, the lack of self-belief so evident in the coach now runs through the team as well. Without Pressley and Hartley to galvanise them, they are an ill-blended assortment of individuals: some work well together in twos and threes, but there is no team unity.

When asked about the policy of introducing so many Lithuanians, Romanov's spokesmen insist that two criteria have to be met: are they good enough to play for Hearts, and do they want to play for Hearts? This explanation is also unconvincing: some of them are clearly not good enough, at least for the team as it was early last season before Romanov's purges began, while others who are good enough, such as Edgaras Jankauskas, look uninterested.

It was Bruno Aguiar who kept Hearts' goal intact when Aberdeen had their first real scoring chance. When Russell Anderson fired in a shot from the edge of the box following a corner, the Portuguese playmaker blocked it on the line, then saw it hit off Andrius Velicka and spin over the bar.

When Hartley came on to the biggest cheer of the afternoon 20 minutes into the second half, it did not take long for him to make an impact. Indeed, he had the ball in the net with only his second touch, only to be ruled offside.

Aberdeen raised their own game in response to the increased tempo from Hearts. Then, with four minutes to go, the deadlock was finally broken. Scott Severin powered upfield, and Craig Gordon could only block his low shot. It fell into the path of Stevie Lovell, who tapped in from a few yards out.

At the time, it looked as if the goalkeeper might have done better, but he said later he felt he had done as well as he could. "I only managed to get one hand on it, so I've just tried to knock it out," the Hearts captain said. "My first opinion was that he [Lovell] was standing in an offside position. The linesman said our left-back was playing him on. You have to look at your defenders to give you a hand in that situation, so it's disappointing on two fronts."

Gordon is to face a disciplinary hearing of his own tomorrow after he and Hartley supported Pressley's public statement about the state the club was in. Robbie Neilson, meanwhile, appears to have been frozen out of the first-team squad entirely even without making an appearance before a kangaroo court. It seems that Scotland internationals are fast becoming an endangered species at the club which gave us Massie and Walker and Bauld and Mackay.
Severin says Tynecastle turmoil boosted Dons

MOST teams used to travel to Tynecastle with a certain amount of trepidation. Now, if Aberdeen are anything to go by, they expect to profit from the internal turmoil at a club which not so long ago boasted a formidable home record.

"We thought we had a chance with what's been going on here recently," said Scott Severin, once a key component of the Hearts midfield just as he now is of Aberdeen's. "It was in the back of our minds. It was a big bonus when Paul [Hartley] wasn't started, because I thought he had a terrific game. You can see the fans love him here from the reception he got when he came on."

While Hartley played dynamically after coming on, it was Severin whose involvement was decisive, as his shot rebounded to Stevie Lovell for the only goal of the game four minutes from time. Rather than reflect on his own indefatigability, though, he joked that it was actually tiredness which had seen him so far up the park so late in the game. "There's a few very quick boys in the team," he said. "I was still getting back from the last attack - that's why I was up there. I just tried to hit the target and there was a bit of movement in it. I'm delighted it fell to Stevie and he put it away well."

If they manage not to lose to Rangers at Pittodrie on Saturday Aberdeen will remain where their 1-0 win two days ago put them - in second place. Celtic have just about disappeared over the horizon, but given their current form Severin and his team-mates must be confident of making a serious challenge for the runners-up spot which Hearts secured last season.

"It's a big game against Rangers and hopefully we'll get a result there," he continued. "Our home form was the problem the last couple of years, but we've got it right this season."

Taken from the Scotsman