Former Tynecastle star reckons Steven Naismith’s side never showed up in Sunday’s semi final – again…
May 18: the final day of the Premiership season. Every Hearts player should have that date circled on their calendar even if the visit of Rangers to Tynecastle will probably mean nothing in terms of my old team’s final league position.
Why? Because it means everything to dealing with what is becoming a serious problem. Five cracks at Rangers this season and five defeats is horrendous form by anyone’s standards – made all the more baffling by the fact Hearts have beaten every other top flight side including Celtic home and away.
Sunday’s spineless Scottish Cup semi final performance against Philippe Clement’s side was maybe the most frustrating of all.
We’ll come to that in a minute. But if I was in that Hearts team then I’d be praying the title fight between Rangers and Celtic goes down to that final day on May 18.
I’d be hoping Rangers are still in with a chance of winning it in Gorgie so that I could go out and dump them in a game that really meant something.
To be brutally honest, even that would be too little too late. But at least it would prove to everyone, not least the Hearts players themselves, that they can beat Rangers.
To have had five attempts and not even got a draw is woeful and I just can’t understand it because this is a good Hearts side.
But they let themselves down in Sunday’s semi final. If they are man enough to take responsibility then they will admit that.
Every manager I played for said ‘go home and look yourself in the mirror’. If those Hearts players did that on Sunday they’d see a reflection of regret after a massive missed opportunity.
They were like rabbits caught in headlights. It looked like the occasion got to them and with the experience in that team I can’t understand why.
The only player I felt bad for was Macaulay Tait. He came off the bench and gave away the ball for the second goal and you could see the devastation in his face. Fair play to him, he held his hands up afterwards saying his mistake killed the game.
He should never have been in that position to kill the game. If the big players had turned up it wouldn’t have been like that.
Tait is only 18, I’m certain he will be back at Hampden again. He will play for Hearts for many years to come because he is a top young player.
But what about the big players? They had seen Aberdeen get right after Celtic on Saturday and come within a penalty kick of winning. Hearts should have gone into Sunday thinking ‘what a chance we’ve got here’.
