Heroic Hearts force the issue against Rangers

NO Michael Stewart, no Janos Balogh, not even any wages. Hearts didn't have their problems to seek ahead of Rangers' visit to Tynecastle, which made this impassioned, gutsy display all the more impressive. Their in-the-face approach was such that, at times, they almost disappeared down the throats of Barry Ferguson, Pedro Mendes and others whilst recording their fifth- consecutive win.

This was a triumph for forward-thinking, pressing football in the tight confines of a stadium that was absolutely bouncing. And it wasn't even full to capacity. Had they allowed Rangers to dictate the game's tempo, Hearts would have suffered like they did against Celtic at the start of last month. But many monumental lessons have been learned since then, as both Ferguson and Mendes discovered.

Each time one of Rangers' cultured midfielders assumed possession, he was confronted by a bare-toothed Jambo ready to hound him off the ball. In this respect, Christos Karipidis and Ruben Palazuelos led the hunting pack.

Ahead of them was the game's outstanding player, Bruno Aguiar, who floated around in an advanced midfield role dumbfounding his opponents with a display of quick movement, inventive passing and no little desire. In fact, it is difficult to imagine this Hearts team functioning without the diminutive Portuguese, who stood head and shoulders above his compatriot Mendes.

Christophe Berra was equally dominant in a defensive context and he combined with Aguiar to create Hearts' goals. The midfielder's free-kicks on 20 and 22 minutes were both met by Berra in the air for Marius Zaliukas and Larry Kingston respectively to convert, Zaliukas doing so after Allan McGregor parried the initial header.

Rangers countered soon after as an unfortunate own goal by Karipidis crept past Balogh's deputy, Jamie MacDonald. However the visitors lacked the necessary space to fashion an equaliser. The reason? Hearts wouldn't let them breathe. Even when Lee Wallace was dismissed on 76 minutes for a second bookable offence – both fouls on Chris Burke – it was difficult to detect that one side had a numerical advantage, so resolved were the hosts to extend their recent winning streak.

Csaba Laszlo, the Hearts manager, expressed his delight amid some cute sarcasm at another missing pay packet, which was due to be paid to all Hearts footballing staff today. "I was two years in Africa and now I have so much money I don't look in my account," laughed the former Uganda national coach.

"I have a lot of experience in this direction but I am not the owner of the club. I don't think about this. We have a very good relationship with the owner and, for me, the biggest payment was the three points. About the other things, time resolves a lot of things. I am better to talk about football.

"I am delighted with the three points and now the gap is not so big between Rangers and my team, only seven points. If we win more games I think we can improve more and come forward. We have been very focused over the last six weeks. The team has learned my rule, which is discipline.

"A lot of people talked about the problem between me and Larry Kingston but there was never a problem. It was more if the player does not have discipline off the field he cannot have discipline on the field. This is my rule. Tactically, if you have big discipline on the field you can beat everybody every day.

"It's not always a question of how much money your players take or how big your budget is. I showed in my career in Africa that you can beat the big teams, like Nigeria and Angola, with nobodies if they (players] follow the rules I have. In my life, I was lucky enough to play against big teams like Brazil and Argentina and I learned.

"I learned a lot from the coach of our opponents, Mr Smith. I always looked at his team. I saw his team all the time when they were in the UEFA Cup and I was in Africa, they had some very good games. I learned from Walter how it is possible to beat his team. The secret was to close the gaps on Mendes and Ferguson. If they don't have the possibility to pass from deep they play long balls. If they do this you win the second balls and we were comfortable with this.

"In the second half the pressure was bigger but we did not give up this tactic. Rangers played only long balls and did not create chances."

Smith accepted his side had been forced into submission by Hearts' bullish tactics. "Credit to Hearts, they made sure they had players back in position and played in a manner we did ourselves in a number of games last season and they did very well," he said, reinforcing Laszlo's assertion that he had studied Rangers during their UEFA Cup run last term.

"Early on in the game, we showed a bit of anxiousness in terms of handling the ball being played up. Then, in the last hour, surprisingly for us because we have created a number of opportunities in other matches, we never really created much.

"Any points that we drop are a blow to us. It certainly means that in the three Old Firm games that are left this season, the pressure is heaped firmly onto ourselves. But we deserve that because normally we handle set plays very well and we didn't do so. Normally we defend very well and we gave two bad goals away to Dundee United recently. Those little bits of inconsistency have plagued us in games.

"Saturday was typical. We were away from home and, territorially, had the vast majority of the game. We can only look at ourselves when we don't manage to create any real clear-cut opportunities in that time."

Where Smith got this opinion is anyone's guess, for it seemed obvious that Hearts did most of the pressing. The latter stages saw the hosts hemmed in striving to protect their lead but this, at best, merely countered their dominance during the first half. Despite the five-game winning sequence, complacency is not a word Laszlo will entertain.

Stuart Pearce watched this match from a VIP seat, to assess Andy Driver with a view to a possible England under-21 call-up. He would have been taken with the Hungarian's rejuvenation of Hearts this season. And this despite the incompetence of referee Dougie McDonald, who continues to justify his critics with every visit to Tynecastle.

Laszlo continued: "I do my job and I have my rules, now the journalists and media and people in the stadium can decide if they see something in my work or not. I cannot say we have made big steps, blah, blah. No. I am a guy who had everything in life, I lost everything, now I've come back. I had eight operations but I am always a guy who stood up, this is my nature. I know 100 per cent what I have to do.

"I was born in Romania but I am Hungarian and I spent 20 years in Germany. I have a mix of German and Hungarian mentality and I think this works very well.

"I have both feet on the ground. I have only one target, to come into the top six. Then we will see what happens, nothing more. Last season the team was in the group to be relegated and finished in eighth position.

"If you are a 100-metre sprinter, it is not important to be in front for the first 95 metres. The finish is important. I have a very bad experience in my life with the finish. I did not lose a lot of games but we lost the Hungarian championship because we did not have a good finish. Now I concentrate on collecting the points."

Berra, after rendering Kris Boyd an incidental figure with perhaps his finest display in a maroon shirt, pointed to the aforementioned Celtic defeat as a catalyst in Hearts' recent dominant run.

"Celtic did to us what we've just done to Rangers," he opined.

"They pressed us in midfield and made us make mistakes. That was our main aim, Tynecastle is a small pitch so we got in their faces and stopped their key players playing. It's always sweeter beating the Old Firm but we will now get back to work to prepare for the Motherwell game. We know we've improved a bit over the last couple of months but the season has ups and downs. It's how we handle them and what character we have. We showed great character on Saturday and it was a well deserved victory.

"Every team needs creative players to open up defences and Bruno and Larry can do that. Driver, on his day, has pace and can commit players. Bruno and Larry can see things and make a cutting pass to split defences. Bruno delivered two great balls for the goals.

"Boyd has been on form but even if you look at their goal, it came from nothing. We knew how good they would be up front but it's credit to the whole team that we stopped them scoring."

The club captain also derived considerable encouragement from beating Rangers the day after he and his colleagues were informed that their wages were delayed.

"I think that just proves what kind of squad we've got, the characters within it. We're all professionals. Obviously we never got our money on Friday but we'll get it today. It just shows that, as professionals, you go out there on a Saturday and you want to win. You're doing it for yourself because there's a lot of young players here with ambition and you never know who could be watching you in the stands.

"If certain players came to Tynecastle on Saturday with money on their mind and thought 'I'm not going to play', they are the types of players you don't want. Luckily, we don't have players like that.

"As soon as you cross that white line you want the three points, no mater who you're playing. You can't use that as an excuse. The money is there and it was getting processed on Friday, but obviously it's the end of the month and the bank never had enough time to process it. We've been assured we'll get the money on Monday morning. It's not a concern for anyone."

At the moment, it doesn't matter which hurdle is placed in front of this Hearts squad. Overcoming adversity is becoming their speciality.