Hearts take the hard route to Champions League triumph

When Hearts thumped Rangers at Tynecastle back in September, fans, players, and management were looking for one thing above all; consistency. The good news is that consistency has been found. No, team selection is still done using the traditional Russian Navy practice of drawing scrabble pieces from a submariner’s sock and awarding double points for the letter ‘K’ (known in the Baltic region as ‘Vlad Scrabble’©). And tactics for the current match are always based on what worked best for the team Hearts faced the previous week. But a run of five league defeats in a row is something that no Hearts team has achieved in the last six seasons (I really couldn’t force myself to start checking fixtures before 2001).

This is beginning to shape up like the dark side of the start of the 2005/6 season. And if Burley was sacked for leading Hearts to nine league victories in a row, it’s only to be expected if fans look to the Romanov father and son combo for some startling announcements during the coming weeks. Perhaps Romanov senior will recommend Anatoly Korobochka for the Ukrainian version of Strictly Come Dancing.

Those five defeats make a return to Europe for next season by way of the league look a tad unlikely. (We’ve always got the customary pre-season tour of Austria and Lithuania to get the juices flowing, of course.) Hearts are also in danger of missing out on playing the big money games against Hibs, Rangers, and Celtic when the league splits towards the end of the season. This may not be the time to mention it but I’m sure I remember someone at the apex of the Hearts hierarchy suggesting that next season’s Champions League final was already pencilled in for a likely Hearts victory. Ah well, I think we can allow the chairman a pipe dream or two.

Hearts fans can always look forward to the building of the new stand. I recently completed the on-line survey about where I thought the team should play during redevelopment work. The way the team are playing just now, the loss of one side of the ground may be the best hope of keeping Tynecastle full on match days but I was feeling optimistic and plumped for Murrayfield. I mean, it’s only to be expected that, after lifting the Champions League, the crowd sizes will increase dramatically.

Category: Hearts

Tags: Hearts

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