Seeing red

I'm really not sure whether or not I should be angry about Mikey Stewart's antics on Saturday at Love Street. I have no doubt whatsoever that had we ended up losing, I may well have felt very differently when the final whistle went, but as we took three points (at last!), once my heart rate calmed to a more healthy rate my feelings on the red card issue were predominantly of disappointment. Being charitable is much easier when you've won.

So what's the deal with him? He had the potential star card slapped on him by Sir Alex and spent some time at Old Trafford, only to end up back in Edinburgh with little to show for his time with the 'big boys'. Unremarkable periods at both Easter Road and Tynecastle demonstrated that while he has talent, he was never really a first pick for any manager when occasional glimpses of decent play were all too often overshadowed by displays of indiscipline and petulance. So he comes back to Tynecastle for the second time and occasionally did rather well for us, but again, the main reason for discussing Michael Stewart was normally an off the ball incident. He even shouted at the fans. But then Csaba arrived and we thought we were in for a real treat.

The sullen, indisciplined player that we knew had found a new lease of life and put in performances that deservedly brought him to the attention of the Scotland manager George Burley. He was given his chance and to all intents and purposes, he didn't really do all that badly for the national team. Most importantly, back at Tynecastle, his inspiring performances on the pitch were coupled with the emergence of real leadership qualities as he took on a more vocal, pushy role than Christophe Berra and became the team's engine in more ways than one. Csaba Laszlo sang his praises, he was invited on to various football programmes as a pundit, and he was even asked to be an ambassador for Poppy Scotland. He had it all there in his own hands.

Friday saw him speaking of the importance of respect and of winning the weekend's fixture as a tribute to those that we then commemorated at Haymarket on Sunday. But on Saturday, his good intentions were rather less than obvious as he lashed out at Hugh Murray and was then sent packing by the 4th official for violent conduct. While he demonstrated little respect for his opponent, his team mates, his manager and the travelling fans, he lost much of the goodwill that had been built up over the past few months and gave credence to all those doubters who had questioned his ability to ever really live up to expectations.

The man is a conundrum of weird proportions. He comes across incredibly well, he's thoughtful, perceptive, articulate and clearly brighter than the average footballer. So why does he have this incessant need to press the self-destruct button? While it makes very little difference in terms of the weekend's events and the damage caused to his reputation, I have no doubt that right now, he'll be mulling the very same question over and over in his head, because while we might be disappointed in Mikey, it probably doesn't compare with the disappointment he must feel with himself.

He could be such an asset to Heart of Midlothian, and has the potential to be a real influence both on and off the pitch, but there will come a time when people stop bothering to wonder about him or ask why he does the things that he does. That goodwill hasn't yet run out completely, but it's diminishing at a rate of knots and the only person who can do anything about it is him. He could be a player we talk about for years to come, but only if he demonstrates respect to the club who employ him, to the fans who pay his wages and most of all, to himself.

Are we expecting too much, too soon?

It's probably never a good idea to kick off a blog with a moaning session but it's impossible to avoid one after watching Hearts wither like chocolate in an oven on Sunday when they turned out against Celtic. There's no denying that as football fans, we've been through the mill in recent months (or years) and the appointment of Csaba Laszlo appeared to inject the club, players and to a certain extent the supporters with a renewed sense of vigour. Progress has been made since the beginning of the current season and improvements are visible across the board, from the club's communication with the fans right down to the squad's team spirit, and to our surprise, we've even seen the press writing some vaguely nice things about us of late. Add a cracker of a derby against Hibs and a courageous performance against the Dons to that mix and you can maybe see why, for a moment, we were thinking things might be on the mend down Gorgie way.

But then we played Celtic.

I was full of positivity and superstitiously concealed hope before the game. I cast my eye over the news in the days leading up to the match and noted that a few of their key players were injured and bolstered this little seed of confidence with the fact that their recent performances in the SPL have been a little less than brilliant. I made my way to Tynecastle on Sunday with a spring in my step, convinced that even if we didn't take 3 points, we were sure to give them a game. I was oh so wrong.

From kick off, we seemed lethargic and disorganised. Our defence which had held so well against Aberdeen the previous week looked fragile and disorientated, our midfield which had controlled the previous few SPL encounters with such confidence was disjointed and sloppy and our lone striker was very, very alone. I'll exclude Janos Balogh from any criticism given that was rarely troubled by Celtic, couldn't have done anything about Maloney's goal and Caldwell's second was the result of scrappy antics at the goalmouth which should perhaps have been ruled out anyway, but most of the outfield players just didn't seem to have turned up at all.

Our lynchpin players such as Stewart, Driver, Berra and more recently added to this list, Bruno Aguiar, all seemed to choose the same date for their 'off day' and most were anonymous throughout. We perhaps only have inconsistent refereeing to thank for the fact that Mikey managed to stay on the pitch for the whole 90 minutes given that his discipline appeared to disintegrate as the match went on and his frustrations started to bubble over into his attempts to win the ball back from a greedy, ball-hogging Celtic. However, I was just glad to see that at least one of our boys in maroon hadn't completely given up so I won't slate him for that. The only other individual worth a mention would be Christian Nade who continues to look more like the striker we thought we had bought all those months ago. He harried, nipped, bustled and at times, seemed like the only Hearts player capable of controlling a football or making an accurate pass. Gold star for him, and I look forward to seeing his continued improvement in the coming weeks. So, yes...it wasn't the most enjoyable 90 minutes I've ever spent in Tynecastle and the only reason I really managed to stay for the duration was the knowledge that it probably really couldn't get any worse.

Post-match comments from Csaba were a little odd, given that he seemed reluctant to direct any sort of criticism at the players but I'm working on the assumption that his aim here was probably damage limitation of some description, given that his comments on the club website since then have been rather less kind. Understandably, Jambos everywhere will be gutted at the result, but reactions to the team's performance are likely to be borne of a much more deeply held concern that some of this current crop just are not good enough. It has to be said that we're weaker in some positions than others, I'm hoping to see the defence bolstered by new recruits in January and regardless of how Tullberg does when he recovers from injury, I still want to see reinforcements brought in there too. But other than that, I'm quite prepared to treat last Sunday as a glitch if we can get back to the kind of performances we witnessed in the weeks prior to that. Improvements are visible and progress has been made, so maybe we need to be a little restrained and try not to expect too much too soon. By Christmas, we'll know whether or not we really do have a renewed sense of direction or whether this is the shape of things to come. Seatbelts on, it's looking like it might be a bumpy ride.