OUT FOR REVENGE
Berra axed Christmas when Hearts took a pounding at Livingston and, this time, he’s...
THE last time Hearts faced Livingston, Christophe Berra spent the bus journey home solemnly informing his team-mates their Christmas night out in Prague was cancelled.
When the sides meet again, on Sunday in the Scottish Cup, the captain will be urging his men to ring in the New Year at Tynecastle by gaining revenge for that 5-0 embarrassment.
On a bleak midwinter’s night at the Tony Macaroni Arena last month, Gary Holt’s side scored five goals in a remarkable 14-minute spell in the second half.
Hapless Hearts had midfielder Arnaud Djoum sent off. But so poor was the entire team that manager Craig Levein later publicly accused his players of ‘chucking it’. It was the undoubted low point of 2018 but the fates have conspired to give Hearts the chance of some quick atonement in their first competitive match of the year.
‘That game at Livingston was a night we won’t forget,’ said Berra. ‘We know we let ourselves down.
‘As captain of this club and someone who comes from Edinburgh, I was down and a little embarrassed afterwards.
‘You have your own personal pride but I also felt we let people down.
‘A few people came together afterwards and had the opinion that cancelling it (the Christmas trip to Prague) was the right thing to do.
‘If we were working normal nine-to-five jobs and we had just had a bad day, then we could still go out and party.
‘But the boys were hurting and they wouldn’t have enjoyed themselves. We wouldn’t have been able to relax. We just wanted to get back on the training pitch and get back playing again.
‘Sometimes in football you get hard knocks and you take them on the chin and move on. That’s what we have to do.
‘But it will be a different game at Tynecastle on Sunday. We know what we need to do to win it but we know it won’t be easy.’
After that humiliation in Livingston came a 2-0 defeat against Aberdeen at Pittodrie. But a 2-0 home win over Hamilton was then followed up by a 1-0 derby victory against Hibernian.
A first victory at Easter Road since 2014 relieved much of the pressure on the Hearts squad ahead of their six days of warm-weather training south of Murcia last week.
Now they have returned from Spain, Berra wants them to become a consistent, settled team who win games on the road in addition to their fine home form at Tynecastle.
‘Football goes from week to week. One minute you can be on a high — and the next minute, you face a low,’ he said.
‘And after Livingston, we regrouped and had two good results before the winter shutdown.
‘The win against Hibs was a great way to sign off for the year. If it had been the other way around and we had lost, then we would have been hurting for a while.
‘But we got our first win over there in four-and-a-half years. We managed to grind it out and Olly Lee scored a great goal to get us the three points.
‘We are trying to be a consistent team and we are trying to build a squad.
‘Hopefully, the core of this squad can stay together for the next two or three seasons and we can build something good here.
‘But if we have aspirations to get up to the top of the league, and into the European places, you have to win at your rivals away from home.
‘We can’t always rely on winning at Tynecastle.’
Hearts will be boosted in the second half of the season by the significant presence up front of new Czech striker David Vanecek. The hulking 27-year-old impressed during a 1-0 friendly loss to Belgian side Lokeren on Friday in Spain.
But Berra warned him Livingston at Tynecastle will be a different experience, should he make his competitive Hearts debut on Sunday.
‘It’s a lot more high-tempo in Scottish football,’ he said. ‘There were no points at stake against Lokeren. It was a different mindset and you try things you maybe wouldn’t do in a league match.
‘I felt the boys worked hard and put a shift in — and we will use those minutes to build to come back fresh for the second half of the season.’