All’s well for Hearts as they top Premiership
Never one to view a halffull glass as being near overflowing, Robbie Neilson produced a belly laugh when it was put to him his team could only blow it now.
Sitting proudly at the summit of the Premiership last night, undefeated after eight games, the Tynecastle side are in danger of making life in the top flight all look a bit too easy.
While both Rangers and Hibs will have the chance to leapfrog them with a win in their meeting this afternoon, the manager knows his team will head to Ibrox on October 16 holding at least a puncher’s chance against the champions.
“It will be tough, but that is the next challenge for us,” said Neilson.
“No matter what happens we will go to Ibrox close to them.
“That is the ultimate aim for every team because that tells you where you are. Can you go to Glasgow and win?
“We have beaten Celtic here but it is a different beast when you go through to Glasgow so
we need to be ready for that.
“However, we know we have players who can handle the ball and players who can work defensively so we will go there and we will give it a real shot.” So they should. Pre-match there was talk of what might be for Motherwell, questions of when last the Steelmen led the top flight.
There is a ruthlessness about this Hearts side, though, and they shut down the visitors optimism in a trice.
Beni Baningime and Barrie McKay, two terrific recent additions, combined slickly with the latter sending a ball in behind for Liam Boyce to chase.
Initially it looked to have been over-hit but the Northern Irishman kept up the chase and got his reward with referee David Munro ruling his tumble at the feet of keeper Liam Kelly to be worthy of a penalty.
In a week in which the prospect of VAR – finally – coming to Scotland has been raised, it was one of those moments which screamed out for a second, third and even fourth look.
As it was, Motherwell had no chance of a reprieve and Boyce himself converted the spot kick to give the home side the lead and take his goals tally for the season into double figures.
A far flashier set piece finish doubled their lead.
Baningime was again
involved at its inception, the former Everton midfielder drawing a foul from Juhani Ojala on the edge of the Motherwell area.
It looked a little straight on to be a perfect position to win such an award but Stephen Kingsley clearly did not care with the full-back curling a lovely left-footed effort beyond Kelly’s dive and into the keeper’s top right-hand corner.
Hearts became even slicker after that, zipping the ball around at pace on the rainsoaked Tynecastle surface.
There was a pleasing amount of endeavour to their defensive play too.
Keeper Craig Gordon was his usual invincible self, pulling off two fine close-range stops to deny Bevis Mugabi and Kaiyne Woolery.
Less expected, perhaps, was the sight of McKay flinging himself into successive tackles to break up Motherwell moves before they got started.
Hearts got a second penalty when Callum Slattery was adjudged to have pushed Cameron Devlin in the back as he bore down on goal.
Kelly was furious about the award and put his anger to good use, saving Boyce’s effort from the spot.
Motherwell were good after that and created several decent opportunities, only to be thwarted on each occasion by Gordon.