A TALE of four strikers, two heroes and two villains.
In the maroon corner stood Christian Nade and Gary Glen, Hearts' goalscoring conquerors. In the green were Steven Fletcher and Derek Riordan, the sinners of Hibernian. If Csaba Laszlo had cause to laud his attackers yesterday, Mixu Paatelainen reserv
ed equal right to lambast his.
Laszlo entered this game crying out, pleading and praying for the emergence of a goalscoring forward. He got more than was bargained for in the end. Like Edinburgh buses, two came along at once for Hearts as Nade and Glen eliminated Hibs from the Scottish Cup.
On the opposite side, Paatelainen felt compelled to defend his principal striker, Steven Fletcher, ordered off for a two-footed challenge on Christophe Berra. Riordan followed up with an ill-advised gesture at the visiting support, ensuring the afternoon would finish with forwards unequivocally hogging the headlines.
Nade and Glen have each endured their own personal battles this season and both reaped the reward for unadulterated diligence yesterday. The Frenchman's weight problems are well documented but his effectiveness on a football pitch was never in question provided he showed Laszlo the required desire. His goal, the opener, was only his second of the season but betrayed the hallmarks of a player instinctively in the right place at the right time to convert Andy Driver's left-sided cutback.
Similarly, Glen's attitude is now markedly different from that of pre-season. His cameo substitute appearance was complemented by a classy late intervention. He stroked the second goal into an empty Hibs net having taken Christos Karipidis' pass round Grzegorz Szamotulski, the goalkeeper who debuted in place of Yves Ma-Kalambay after the Belgian departed at half-time with a tweaked hamstring.
The game turned in Hearts' favour long before then, of course. Fletcher executed an over-zealous tackle on Berra on 31 minutes and headed down the tunnel with a straight red card. For all Paatelainen's complaints afterwards – he claimed Berra leapt "like a brown trout" without any contact – it was difficult to disagree with referee Craig Thomson's decision. Had Fletcher not led with both feet he would surely have remained on the field, and Hibs may not have fallen behind seven minutes later after enforced reorganisation.
Riordan aimed a distasteful "up yours" gesture towards Hearts fans who cheered his 65th-minute substitution. He received a yellow card for conduct that couldn't have been more ungentlemanly considering he was 50 yards away, and the misdemeanour merely compounded the hosts' misery.
Curiously, Laszlo declared himself dissatisfied with a 2-0 victory in the backyard of his club's greatest rivals. Strikers scoring both goals apparently was not sufficient as he voiced his opinions on a win which secured a fifth-round Scottish Cup tie at home to Falkirk.
"Okay, we won the game but there were a lot of things that I am not happy about in my team," he said. "I saw a lot of very wrong things. I never talk about the other team ever but I am not happy with some of our performances. I am not happy to win 2-0, normally you should maybe win 4-0 and our killer instinct is one of the things which is missing. It is not there and for this I am not happy.
"This is not a joke what we do, this is serious work and I cannot accept this. What was not so good for example was in the first ten minutes, we were not even on the field and we did not look too sure what we were doing. I think we lacked concentration from some players, especially up front. You only win the derby if your heart is in the right place and if your mind is in the right place also. If you can use your brain and mind then you can stay in control and win the game. I told my team that in a lot of situations we were cooler. This was the difference.
"Zaliukas in the first 15 minutes was somewhere in town but not out on the pitch. He gave a big chance to Hibs and I told him after the game he must take Janos Balogh's family out to dinner for his mistake."
Zaliukas was culpable for losing possession on 11 minutes which allowed Sol Bamba to send Steven Fletcher through on Balogh, but the Hungarian expertly clawed the ball out from his opponent's feet inside the penalty area.
Laszlo is something of a part-time psychologist when it comes to motivation and one suspects this was at the heart of his post-match comments. Deep down, he would have relished the prospect of Nade and Glen evolving as the kind of potent strikeforce he craves. "Gary is a young guy," he continued. "I took him to Germany with the first team for our pre-season training camp and I was very angry with him.
"He got a new contract and he was happy that he was now the best player and that he did not have to do anything more. But I told him that with this kind of attitude he could not play in my team. He played in the reserves for a while but now in the last few weeks we have worked very good together. I took him back to the first team and I told him that I was giving him the chance and that he had to do the rest. You must help yourself. He is a talented player but he must learn a lot of things about ball position and ball control but he has also got good, natural direct movement towards the goal. He was very dangerous yesterday. He took his chance and this is the difference."
Fletcher's dismissal was the undeniable turning point but Laszlo rejected Paatelainen's suggestion that his player was treated harshly by the referee. "I think you must see the television replay," he continued. "I can understand that if you lose a game like this 2-0 at home then you search all ways for something. Maybe the red card is it this time. They were down to ten men but you don't know, maybe with 11 against 11 we could have won 3-0. This is also possible.
"Everything is possible in football and I think that if you see the replay then it needs no comment on the decision from the referee.The referee was one of the best that I have seen in the game. Not because of the red card, but because of the way that he handled both teams. I must make a big compliment for him.
"This was a typical cup game with emotion and the passion and everything that you need for football and okay, sorry, maybe next time he (Paatelainen] will win the game. Obviously I have the good position right now because we have won the game but also I appreciate my colleague from the other side, I understand his situation completely. We are sportsmen and we understand each other. Sometimes they are hurting for their players.
"I saw a lot of aggression from the Hibernian players and sometimes it is important to take a step back. Also, with ten guys we have won some games, it is possible. If you play Heart of Midlothian against Hibernian there is a lot of passion and if you lose then for the next two or three weeks, or even until the next derby, this is the main point that everyone is talking about. If I lose the game it is not easy for me either. But I would like to congratulate Hibernian for the way that they played the match and all the best for their next game."
