LAFF A MINUTE!
Troubled Hearts hitman is feeling the love after shooting down Saints
THE emotion came bursting out of Kyle Lafferty as he raced full-tilt across the Murrayfield turf. In a moment of joyous celebration, he almost looked in danger of pulling a hamstring.
But any pain he might have felt was soon washed away by a sea of maroon jerseys as, after sharing an embrace with his manager Craig Levein, the pair were swiftly mobbed by every other Hearts player in sight.
The Northern Ireland striker has recently gone public with his gambling addiction and the sincerity of what followed his winning goal against St Johnstone yesterday made it clear that he values and appreciates every bit of support he is being given at Hearts.
The victory lifts the Tynecastle side above their opponents in the Premiership table and into fifth. They will now travel to Easter Road on Tuesday night for an Edinburgh derby looking to build further on the clear improvement they have made under Levein.
‘Let’s be honest, it wasn’t great,’ admitted the Hearts boss. ‘A war of attrition, if you want to be nice about it.
‘I thought we looked a bit confused with a lot of our play in the final third. We kept choosing the wrong option once we had worked the ball into a good area.
‘But we had a few youngsters on the pitch and I think you have to give them immense credit because they’ve really managed to grind it out. That’s not easy to do as a young player.’
The confidence that Hearts would have taken from last weekend’s 2-1 victory at Ross County was not immediately apparent. They looked nervy in the opening stages, with John Souttar making a pig’s ear of what should have been a simple backpass to Jon McLaughlin, while Prince Buaben was booked on seven minutes after a clumsy trip on Stefan Scougall on the edge of the penalty area.
It is not often you will see a centre-half on set-piece duties, but Souttar’s delivery from corner-kicks was consistently excellent. From his ball in, Lafferty flashed a glancing header just wide of the target on 17 minutes.
However, Hearts never really followed that up and it took them until the 38th minute to have their next meaningful effort on goal. Isma Goncalves slipped a clever pass into the path of Jamie Walker, who looked to have the goal at his mercy, only to be denied by a last-ditch block from Joe Shaughnessy.
In terms of a spectacle, however, the first half left a lot to be desired. Already on a booking and looking like a red card waiting to happen, Buaben did not reappear after the interval, his place being taken by young Harry Cochrane as Levein sought to inject some energy into the game.
It certainly did the trick. Walker brought the stadium to its feet with an incisive run on 53 minutes but, after the winger had squared the ball to him inside the area, Goncalves could only muster a feeble shot which Saints goalkeeper Alan Mannus saved comfortably.
With the clock ticking down and a second consecutive 0-0 at Murrayfield looming large, it would have been easy to criticise Levein. But St Johnstone were every bit as bad and, after two 3-0 defeats on the bounce, there was no real improvement from Tommy Wright’s men yesterday.
‘We didn’t do enough, particularly in the second half,’ admitted Wright. ‘We aren’t making things happen at the top end of the pitch just now and, ultimately, the players need to take responsibility.’
It was the introduction of Cochrane that gave Hearts far greater drive and purpose in the middle of the park. It was no surprise, then, that the 16-year-old was heavily involved in what turned out to be the winning goal on 74 minutes.
Lurking outside the edge of the penalty area, the ball broke to him and he decided to have a pop from distance. The ball seemed to thump into Lafferty more than anything, though the big striker will no doubt claim he killed it stone dead.
Whatever he did, it worked a treat. All of a sudden, he had a yard of space to turn and shoot. He did not catch it as he intended and the ball took a wicked deflection off Shaughnessy, spinning beyond Mannus and into the bottom corner.
Cochrane almost got the goal his performance deserved. Walker broke away on the counter-attack in the 90th minute, slipped the youngster in on goal, but his shot came crashing back off the left-hand post.
‘Harry was excellent,’ added Levein. ‘Funnily enough, he might not have played had Don Cowie or Arnaud Djoum been fit.’
If those two are still absent come Tuesday night in Leith, it would seem Levein has a thoroughly capable young deputy on his hands.