DC92

If you take games against the top two out of the equation, Killie, St Mirren and Aberdeen all have a ceiling of 65 points, Dundee 67, and Hibs 63. Six wins will definitely do it. We'd probably get away with four and a couple of draws tbh, but I'd rather we just get it done and have the cigars out in March again.

From my experience over the last couple of decades and more, the team that finishes 3rd/best of the rest can usually be described as "average". We've had several top 3 finishes in that time, but aside from 97/98 and 05/06, I'm not sure any of our teams escape that description. The same is true of Aberdeen aside from a season or two when McInnes was at his peak. Average is the norm. If it wasn't for a horror run of injuries last season, we'd very likely be on course for a 3rd straight 3rd place, even allowing for Neilson losing the plot a year ago. That's at least a welcome level of relative consistency which we haven't had for ages.

Shankland only seems to score great goals now. His last 5 have all been ridiculous finishes. Am I deluded for thinking Gordon might have saved the "goal" yesterday and McGhee's in midweek? Clark is too close to his near post on both occasions imo.

It was 100% given for the Beni one. That's what Clancy was looking at on the screen.

Fortunate to be level at half-time. Probably should have won by more in the end. To go for a less obvious name, I thought Nieuwenhof was excellent in the second half. Hopefully that's him coming onto a game. If Dundee win their games in hand they'll only be 8 points behind. Hopefully the Dons can do us a favour in midweek.

That was handball, but I was convinced it wasn't going to be given because Forrest was offside in the build-up. Didn't see a replay of that.

We've been starting games poorly recently, but that really was fucking dreadful aside from a 5 minute spell. Midfield nonexistent. The only positive is we're somehow not losing.

Kingsley at CB in a four? Hmm.

That tactic worked quite well in the second half at Pittodrie last month. Hopefully we've got a better plan to combat it this time.

More or less the same, but they weren't in a worse position last season. They're 2 points worse off after 19 games and Hearts are 1 point better off after 22. I think if the same results played out this time we'd scrape it by the skin of our teeth on goal difference.

This is a massive game because, while a defeat isn't a disaster on paper, last season will start to play on people's minds. If we win, I really can't see anyone catching us. I can imagine there'll be a clamour to play a back 4 after the other night but I'm not sure either way. It feels like whenever we change formation we fix one issue while creating another, which probably isn't surprising. How is Lembikisa defensively in a 4 when we're not playing the whole game in the other team's half, for example? We don't need to overcommit in this game. That said, the back 3 hasn't looked nearly as solid with Halkett in for Rowles anyway. I'm guessing Baningime is out, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a back 4 with Cochrane pushed into midfield. That would give us the option to switch to a 3 without making subs, if we needed to.

We were minutes away from 6 points from 6 in Glasgow until VAR intervened at Ibrox, and Aberdeen were on course to take 6/6 against Rangers until the same thing happened to them at Pittodrie. The reality is Killie or anyone else winning 3 games against the OF in one season is the exception rather than the norm for obvious reasons.

I agree and that's probably the way it should be. I'm not 100% convinced by Naismith myself yet. There seems to be zero patience whatsoever from some, though. Next time we lose or drop points at home it'll be time for him to go again.

Clear and obvious.

It has been fine margins, and we absolutely are liable to drop points from time to time if we keep playing the same way, but we've consistently been on the right side of those fine margins for a long run of games over several months now. The games we've lost have all been fine margins as well (Celtic at Tynecastle aside) and while we don't create much, we are generally making more chances than the opposition in the games we're winning. Midfield is an issue. The blend looked wrong on paper last night and against Ross County and it proved to be so on the pitch as well. Nieuwenhof and Denholm in the same midfield isn't good enough and doesn't work. We've got a few options so I think we'll get by, but it needs addressed at some point. Unfortunately, the common theme in the drop in defensive performance is the return of a rusty looking Craig Halkett, as well as the loss of Rowles, who's been excellent in recent months. Hopefully Halkett can quickly get back to how he was, otherwise it's a concern for the next couple of weeks. I don't think we're seeing fundamentally different things here. After the shambles at the end of Neilson's time, I'm just happy for us to be getting results consistently and pulling away in third, which can't be taken for granted. If we lose a game or two I'm not going to panic like some others seem to whenever we lose a goal, because there's a body of evidence that suggests we'll continue to pick up points. If we f**k up third or haven't improved in 12 months time then I'll be frustrated, but for now I'm reasonably happy (still need a couple of players in this window).

None of them seemed to be giving much credit. Michael Stewart made sure to point out we only played well in the last half-hour (not the whole half) and even then we didn't have any good "patterns of play". That's probably not completely without merit but it feels like a high bar for what constitutes a good performance considering we definitely had more of the play and more of the chances over the 90 minutes as a whole. And the missed penalty could easily have been a negative momentum-shifter as much as Nieuwenhof's goal was a positive one, but it wasn't. I got the sense they'd made their mind up on the game at half-time and didn't want to row back on anything. It's a sentiment that's there among plenty of Hearts fans as well. Quite a lot of us made our minds up on Naismith early (I also thought he was a dud) and are reluctant to admit they might be wrong. We've put a long run of consistent results together since getting knocked out of Europe (11 wins and only 2 defeats v the bottom 9 in all comps, a win at Parkhead, beaten every team in the league except Rangers, etc.) but still whenever the first sign of adversity appears there are a host of people going "Aha! There it is! I knew this was coming! That's the REAL Hearts!" and it's getting a bit tedious now. That's not me saying we don't have plenty of room for improvement and I do think we'll have sticky patches to come this season. I wouldn't even say I'm completely sold on Naismith yet, but maybe he's earned a bit more leeway than he seems to get from some.

Listened back to the end of the game on Sportsound there. Richard Gordon asks whether Hearts can sustain this run of clawing back points from behind and scoring late winners. Before tonight we'd only managed one single point from a losing position and had scored one late winner all season.

Tait is a player.

Thankfully I don't tune in all that often these days, but the idea that Preston's shrieking is limited to home goals at Tynecastle is a definite myth. I've always found his "excitement" levels generally just reflect the game, even if the away team at Tynecastle is giving us a doing. I bet if you searched Kickback you'd find a dozen threads calling him a w**k with an agenda against the club for this reason. The reality is he's just irritating to listen to.

I remember him coming across as a bit of an arsehole in Paulo Sergio's unveiling press conference. Obviously if he was Hibs it would have automatically been put down to that.

Scott Fraser on loan apparently. I'm pretty sure Levein tried to sign him a few years ago which doesn't bode well. I've barely seen him play/can't remember him but he feels a bit "Andrew Shinnie".

Hibs' current showing is definitely putting ours into perspective.

We've somehow managed to palm off Andy Halliday, Jordan Roberts and Conor Sammon onto them in recent years. Don't give up hope.

Lembikisa looked good when he came on. I'll leave it at that.

I think our entire squad of 20 has 10 goals between them this season.