Hearts 5-2 Saints

Last updated : 14 January 2012 By Stuart Gillespie

To lose to the Jambos by three goals if they had 11 men would be bad. Losing to them in that fashion when they had 10 - and we were 2-1 up at one point - is completely unacceptable. Even with our previous troubles against teams with less than 11 players we should have been looking to take at least a point from Gorgie. Instead, not only do we end up with nothing, we suffer a rather embarrassing defeat.

Once again we went behind ridiculously earlier, Marius Zaliukas scoring from a corner inside the first minute. So not only had Hearts managed to score inside 60 seconds, they even managed to force a corner too. Brilliant.

Fortunately, things got better 10 minutes or so later when Kenny McLean played a neat ball over the top for Paul McGowan and as the forward got ready to shoot Zaliukas pulled him back. The Hearts defender was sent off, McGowan scored the spot-kick and we were all square.

And before we'd even managed to reach the 20 mark we were in front. Marc McAusland went on a great run and sent in a fantastic cross for Steven Thompson - back from injury - to head home. Sadly, that was as good as it got and Rudi Skacel equalised for Hearts a few minutes later to send the sides in level at the break.

Skacel's only previous hat-trick for Hearts came against us - and now he has two trebles against the Buddies. In the 64th minute he lashed home from a John Sutton lay-off and five minutes later thundered another left footed shot past Samson. The misery was complete in the final minute when Sutton - making a rare start despite attempts from ourselves to sign him during the week - scored.

Awful, awful stuff after being in such a good position. We have now won just one of our last nine games, a rather worrying run of form. A big, big improvement is needed in every aspect for Tuesday's cup replay against Hamilton.

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