FIVE-STAR HEARTS FIND FORM AT LAST
HE would be unlikely to feature in any comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe, but Robbie Neilson’s sense of humour is as sharp and dry as any headline act. His sense of timing immaculate.
These opening few weeks of the new season have arguably been the most difficult of his two-year managerial tenure at Tynecastle. A European exit to Maltese opposition had served as the prelude to a wobbly start in the Premiership, only for accusations to follow that director of football Craig Levein was actually picking the Hearts team.
Yet, after watching his team comprehensively dismantle Inverness Caley Thistle yesterday, Neilson gave a cheeky, grinning nod to the bygone days of Vladimir Romanov.
The days when a small army of coaches and directors would email and fax team selections to whichever man was unfortunate enough to have the title of Hearts manager at the time. ‘When the fax came through this morning and I saw the team, I was delighted!’ laughed Neilson, the release of pressure etched all over his face.
‘Our performance was really pleasing. We were good in attack. We scored a variety of goals, with threats coming from various players. Our execution was excellent.’
Make no mistake, this is not Levein’s team. How could it be? Certainly not with two strikers on the pitch.
Suggestions to the contrary last week came primarily from Michael Stewart and Gary Mackay — two men who have a notoriously poor history with Levein.
Neilson’s fingerprints are all over this Hearts side, playing with such a verve and energy yesterday that the match was never in doubt from the moment the excellent Don Cowie put them into the lead after just seven minutes.
True, Hearts could hardly have wished for more obliging opponents than Inverness, but this was a return to the form of the last two seasons for the Gorgie men.
The assist for the opening goal will go to Conor Sammon, but so much credit must be given to Cowie for his awareness and intelligent movement.
With his back to goal, Cowie stepped over the ball and dummied John Souttar’s pass forward.
He immediately spun and ran into the space vacated by the Inverness defenders. Sammon duly fed the ball back into his path and Cowie curled a sublime left-footed shot low beyond Owain Fon Williams.
It was a brilliantly incisive piece of football and the speed at which it happened seemed to dizzy Inverness.
It was an early blow from which they never looked likely to recover from.
Cowie and Sammon would be heavily involved in Hearts’ second goal just 10 minutes later, but Tony Watt’s contribution was crucial. It was his scurrying run forward and his strength to retain possession on the edge of the box that allowed Cowie to cross the ball for Sammon to rise and cushion a header over Fon Williams into the net.
This was Watt’s best performance so far in a Hearts jersey. The only disappointment will be that he never made it on to the scoresheet, but he was heavily involved in Hearts’ third goal.
Inverness were hopeless. Defenders who struggled to tackle, midfielders who struggled to pass and strikers who struggled to shoot amounted to the Highlanders facing a 3-0 deficit just 60 seconds after the half-time interval.
It was Watt’s surging run forward that created the space once again. He played the ball into Sammon’s feet. The big Irish striker laid the ball off for the onrushing Cowie to shoot first time into the bottom corner.
With quarter of an hour left to play, Bjorn Johnsen came off the bench to make his debut for Hearts and it proved to be a terrific cameo.
His exquisite back-heel sliced Inverness open and allowed Sam Nicholson to race through and thump an emphatic finish into the net on 78 minutes.
‘Bjorn is totally different to anything else you’ll see in Scottish football,’ said Neilson of the 6ft 5in striker.
‘He offers us a different threat and will now fight Tony and Conor to get into the team.’
Nicholson then doubled his tally just 60 seconds later, racing clear and finishing in off the post after Cowie had won the ball initially in midfield.
Ross Draper grabbed a consolation for Caley Thistle, but manager Richie Foran was quick to shoulder the blame for the result.
‘I pick the team and the tactics, so it’s my fault,’ said Foran. ‘I lost the rag at half-time, but the players are better than this result suggests. I don’t think it was a 5-1 kind of match.
‘We still want to add one or two players to the squad, but Farid El Alagui won’t be one of them. That deal won’t be happening.’