Christmas fear replaces festive cheer in Gorgie
Festive fears as Stendel’s side slip to bottom of Premiership
CHRISTMAS cheer will be replaced by festive fear for Hearts when they face Hibs on Boxing Day.
And the feeling of derby dread won’t have anything to do with having one too many sherries on Christmas Day.
Taking on their bitter rivals has a habit of bringing out the best in the Jambos, no matter how bad things are in Gorgie.
Hearts fans are desperately hoping that will be the case again and a win in Thursday’s capital clash would be the perfect tonic for their recent troubles.
But even that would only be a small step on the start of a very long road to full recovery for the Tynecastle side.
They say hitting rock bottom is the perfect chance to restart in the right way and new boss Daniel Stendel must take that opportunity after watching his side slump to the foot of the Scottish Premiership following this defeat at Hamilton on Saturday.
It was the German’s third loss in a week and, if he didn’t know it already, underlined the size of the task the former Barnsley manager has taken on, although he quite rightly pointed to the work of those he succeeded for the mess he has inherited.
According to French novelist Guillaume Musso “when you decide to hit rock bottom, humiliation is part of the deal” and Hearts have certainly suffered their fair share of that.
When former Brighton midfielder Will Collar netted his first senior goal to double Accies’ advantage in Lanarkshire, many of the visiting fans were streaming for the exits as they watched an all too familiar story unfold.
Those disgruntled fans missed their side’s first goal in 354 minutes – and first away from Tynecastle since the Edinburgh derby win in September from which they emerged victorious despite a wretched run – when substitute Oliver Bozanic gave them a lifeline. But the Australian’s header from Michael Smith’s corner proved to be nothing more than a consolation after Mickel Miller’s opener before Collar’s strike earned Brian Rice’s men a first victory in a dozen games. The result meant Hearts had lost to the bottom side in successive weeks having been beaten at home by St Johnstone seven days earlier. If they didn’t already know that there is a real threat of relegation then they certainly do after this result.
When Hearts were relegated seven seasons ago they suffered a disastrous December where they picked up just one point from five games in the run-up to a new year that started with defeat to Hibs.
Having been deducted 15 points at the start of that season following administration, survival was always going to be unlikely but another woeful December has put them in real danger of the drop again.
Hearts have managed just one point out of a possible 18 this
month and with Hibs and Aberdeen to visit Tynecastle before the bells ring in for 2020 it could get even worse.
Stendel admitted after the game that safety is now the priority and defender Craig Halkett said: “It doesn’t get any easier. The boys are hurting and it isn’t a nice place to be or position to be in.
“It is only us who can change it. Everyone knows it isn’t good enough. We are in a situation where things aren’t going our way and we know it will be difficult to get out of.
“We haven’t said it is only halfway through the season or anything, we know now we are in a relegation battle.
“We are bottom of the league and are three points adrift of the next team.
“We need to sort it and quickly. When you look at the table it is hard to believe we are bottom, we shouldn’t be there. We are too big a club to be where we are, we should be challenging at the other end of the table, but we aren’t.
“We mentioned that in the last three games we were looking for
at least six points from them. Some of the teams down there have been used to battling there and we haven’t.
“It is an advantage they have over us. But we need to deal with it and dig deep and get out of it. We need to learn as quickly as we can about being down there.
“Everyone has to go away and have a look at themselves and help to figure out what is going wrong. We need to rectify it and quickly.”
Hearts dominated early on but again blew their chances with
Steven Naismith – before being forced off injured at the break – missing the best of those when he fired over from Steven MacLean’s headed knockdown.
Halkett himself hit the crossbar but scoring has been a huge problem for Jambos and that is putting pressure on the backline who failed to keep a clean sheet on Saturday.
Miller smashed a shot into Joel Pereira’s top right-hand corner after a one-two with George Oakley before Collar added a second after Miller turned provider.