Gordon eager to make ground in race for second

IF HEARTS win at Ibrox this afternoon, the race for second place in the SPL will be back on with a vengeance. If they lose, their hopes of emulating last season's achievement of reaching the Champions League qualifying stages will surely be close to evaporating entirely.

An away victory will cut the Tynecastle side's deficit to two points, while a home win will stretch it to eight. It will be recalled that on the first day of 2006, Celtic won at Tynecastle to go seven points clear at the top of the table; in retrospect at least, that was the day the league was won.
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A point behind Hearts with a game in hand, Aberdeen would also claim to have some interest in the fight to finish second. If the form they showed in their recent Scottish Cup defeat by Hibs is anything to go by, however, Jimmy Calderwood's side will be fortunate to finish fourth. Realistically, Hearts are the only team who can prevent the resumption of the Old Firm's duopoly.

In the brief period given to him since he arrived at Ibrox, Walter Smith has done a lot to restore unity and self-confidence to Rangers. Their win at Dunfermline six days ago may have been narrow and unspectacular, but it was also a far more solid display than they had managed for some time, thanks in large part to the reassuring presence in central defence of new signing Davie Weir.

Ugo Ehiogu has since become Smith's second signing of substantial experience, and, like Weir, is expected to act as a model professional whose example the younger players can emulate. Yet, for all that Smith has had an instant impact since taking over, the Hearts captain and goalkeeper Craig Gordon believes this may be the best time for his team to head westward in search of a win.

"It's very early days," Gordon said of the Smith regime. "They've brought in a few new players and it depends how they settle. It's a good time to get them. We've been going quite well.

"It's a big game. We'll be going through there looking to win the game. The days of travelling through west and looking to hold on and try to get a point are well and truly gone.

"I have won there before, but it's not an easy place to go [to]. We're going there confident. We've been playing fairly well recently, we're looking upwards again, and we're looking to try and peg back Rangers. It could be a six-point game."

Rangers are of course not the only team to have improved recently - at the start of December Hearts were barely hanging on to a place inside the top six, but have since bounced back. "We're playing fairly well and have been grinding out results," continued Gordon, who will return to the side after a groin strain kept him out of last week's 1-0 win against Falkirk.

"It looked at one stage that we were going to be languishing in the middle of the table for the rest of the season, but we've managed to get our act together and we've come out the other side stronger.

"This is a good game that's coming at the right time for us, and hopefully we can do the job. We're involved in the chase, and everything that's happened that didn't look likely. We've got to take that as a positive."

Gordon would not agree that defeat would be the end of Hearts' attempt to become runners-up again, but explained he was not interested in contemplating the consequences of defeat. "We're going there to win the game, and I'm confident in my team," he said. "Eight points isn't irretrievable, but that's not something I'm going to think about."

It transpired that he would rather think about what might be happening at the far end of the pitch from his goal. The experience brought to the Rangers line-up by Weir and Ehiogu is obvious, but, with a combined age of 70, the pairing - presuming Ehiogu gets the nod over Karl Svensson - will be far from the fastest duo in the SPL.

"We've got a few quick guys that hopefully can exploit that," Gordon explained. "And if they try and sit deep to compensate, we've got guys who can break quickly from midfield. We're very confident we can go there and cause them problems."

As the fastest striker currently available to Valdas Ivanauskas, Roman Bednar should start up front. Edgaras Jankauskas will begin the match alongside him, playing as the target man and aiming to unsettle the Rangers centre-backs. Andrius Velicka, at the centre of controversy last week, is expected to be on the bench.

In midfield, the familiar axis of Julien Brellier and Paul Hartley will attempt to wrest control of the game away from Barry Ferguson and Brahim Hemdani. Neither Laryea Kingston nor Gogita Gogua, the two midfielders recently signed by Hearts, is ready to be involved. The club was still finalising details of their loan moves yesterday, and both are short of match fitness.

Ivanauskas suggested that once those two deals were completed, there would be no more inward activity at Tynecastle during this transfer window. "We have interest in a few other players, but I think we are strong enough for the rest of the season," he said.

Just how strong Hearts are right now should become clear this afternoon.

Taken from the Scotsman