Motherwell 0-1 Hearts: Craigan lifts Hearts with own goal

MOTHERWELL 0
HEARTS 1 Craigan og 11

WHO on earth would find the net for their side with top scorer Andrius Velicka slated for the off? That was the vexing question for Hearts supporters yesterday morning. None of them would have come up with the name Stephen Craigan. But, unwittingly, the Motherwell centre-back proved the man responsible for the goal – of the 'own' variety – that earned the Tynecastle men a whirlwind win. Or rather, a win in a whirlwind.

Stevie Frail's team adapted to the weather far better than their underperforming hosts who were left to curse the conditions. The shock of it all was that the Fir Park playing surface was not the cause of the most venomous oaths. Though it was deemed necessary to hold an inspection yesterday morning before the pitch was passed playable, the part-rutted, part-bald, part-relaid turf didn't look any worse than in recent times. It was still atrocious, of course, but despite heavy rain late in the week no more "diabolical" than Mark McGhee had labelled it the previous Saturday. The real game spoiler yesterday was a swirling wind that caused the ball to hang up or rush through in the air in erratic fashion.

Hearts had it at their backs in the first period, and with the gusts came a gusto from a side that didn't have a make-and-do look to it despite some notable injury omissions. Chief among these was Velicka. Absent with a pelvic problem, the Lithuanian striker is set to be permanently lost to the Tynecastle side, with a £1m move to Norwegian side Viking Stavanger reported to be imminent. The striker is the Gorgie club's chief, and only reliable, source of goals this season with 14 to his name, and the apparent willingness of owner Vladimir Romanov to flog him is causing the club's faithful no end of grief.

It is yet further irrefutable evidence that Hearts are now back to precisely where they were in the fag-end of the Chris Robinson era. But at least in those days when they sold players as the result of a financial imperative – think Gary Naysmith, Colin Cameron, Antti Niemi and Neil McCann – the proceeds were used to alleviate club debts. Velicka is on loan from Kaunas and therefore any transfer fee he attracts will be banked in Lithuania. Directly at least, it won't make even a small dent in Hearts' mushrooming debt, thought to be close to £40m.

As well as Velicka, injury deprived the visitors of Andrew Driver, out with a groin strain, Layrea Kingston, Michael Stewart and Neil McCann. To Frail's credit, they still looked a drilled unit without some of these dependables. Indeed, inside a minute should have taken the lead when Christian Nade was presented with a glorious shooting opportunity at the back post. The Frenchman made a clean contact, but in prefering power over placement allowed keeper Graeme Smith to throw himself to his right to block confidently.

Atypically, there was a slugglishness about Motherwell. They struggled to move the ball around with alacrity, the very facet that has become the trademark of their play under McGhee and the reason why then headed into yesterday's encounter out on their own in third and 14 points better off than ninth-placed Hearts. In the entire first period, the home team fashioned only one shot on Steve Banks' goal and could not force a single corner. Indeed, the only significant incident in the Hearts' box was a collison between Banks and David Clarkson after ten minutes that left the Motherwell striker clutching his face on the ground.

The importance of this moment grew in the seconds after it. Referee Craig Thomson's refused to stop play despite piercing whistling from the home supporters and Hearts duly took the lead when a very speculative, very long-range effort from Eggert Jonsson richoceted off the out-stretched foot of Craigan and flew in at the top right-hand corner of the wrong-footed Smith's net.

The Lanarkshire side's lot was not improved by Clarkson succumbing to his earlier head knock in the 30th minute. His replacement Simon Lappin was pressed into action as a third striker but when Motherwell fortunes did not improve with wind working for them, McGhee withdrew the ineffectual Stephen Hughes in favour of Darren Smith. You could have laid a wager on Hughes failing to perform after a topper of a newspaper headline declared "Hughes The Daddy" on the morning of the match. Hughes, of course, rejected a move to Hearts in the summer, preferring instead to further his career at Fir Park when he left Leicester.

McGhee rejigged his team into a 4-4-2 formation but by the closing minutes, matters had become so desperate he took off Craigan, threw on teenager Jamie Murphy and reconfigures his charges into a 3-4-3.

Minutes before he did so, Banks had produced a superb one-handed save to deny the home side. A free-kick whipped in by Ross McCormack seemed netbound when it was flicked on by Smith. Somehow, though, the Hearts goalkeeper seemed to develop a telescopic arm to fingertip the ball behind as it headed for the right hand corner of his net. He didn't fare so well from the resultant corner, which slipped from his grasp. An almighty melee ensued as Motherwell players hacked away at him on the ground as he sought to smother the ball.

After another McCormack free-kick brought another Banks block it continued to be frantic stuff in the final seconds as Motherwell slung bodies and high balls into the box. It was all to no avail, however, and Hearts held on for a precious victory which lifted them into seventh place.