It was a case of double, double, toil and trouble for Partick Thistle as two goals apiece from Juanma and Osman Sow helped Hearts to a crushing victory.
With Hearts narrowly, and in truth, rather fortuitously ahead at the break, not many inside Firhill could have foreseen the emphatic nature of the visitor’s eventual victory - a win that moves them above Aberdeen into second place in the Premiership standings.
Indeed, their manager Robbie Neilson was furious with his player’s first-half efforts despite their single-goal advantage at the break, believing that his international cast may have been spooked by the eerie surroundings of a late October evening in Maryhill.
He said: “In the first half we were poor and I thought Partick were the better team. We managed to get the goal with a wee bit of quality and built on that to make it a good day.
“We’ve got good players so the first half performance wasn’t good enough for me. We were lucky to come in 1-0 up because Partick were the better team and had the better chances. We shouldn’t have to come in after 45 minutes and have a go at them to get them geed up to go back out in the second half, we need to do it all the time.
“If we’d played like that in the first half against Celtic last Wednesday night we’d have been 4-0 down. We must do it all the time.
“The first half today was in some ways down to guys getting used to the environment, coming here on a wet night. It’s difficult, it’s dark and we’ve got guys from Nigeria, Spain and Brazil who are not used to that kind of environment.”
Any manager that openly criticises his team after a 4-0 victory away from home is clearly setting high standards, and even his pair of double-grabbing strikers didn’t escape his wrath.
“Sow and Juanma could be top goalscorers in Scotland no bother but they need to do it all the time,” he said.
“They need to hold the ball in better, link it better, make better runs in behind - and when they actually do it they score goals. They just have to do it more consistently.”
Juanma broke the stalemate in an even first-half on 37 minutes, poking home a drilled ball across the six-yard area from Sow after Thistle failed to react to the rebound from a Ryan Scully save.
The home fans voiced their displeasure at referee Steven McLean as the half-time whistle blew, with the theatrics of a few Hearts players going unchecked throughout the opening period. One recovery from Sam Nicholson as the ball landed near him whilst lying prostrate in apparent distress was particularly embarrassing, so much so that it drew laughter rather than howls of derision from the locals in the Jackie Husband stand.
The Thistle support weren’t laughing soon after the break though as Hearts doubled their advantage, with Sow making the most of some soft defending from Liam Lindsay to barge his way through and slot home on 51 minutes.
The impressive Arnaud Djoum then weaved his way into the home area through several challenges before Lindsay intervened with a trip just as the midfielder was about to pull the trigger.
McLean immediately pointed to the spot, and was perhaps slightly lenient to only flash a yellow card in the young defender’s direction.
Juanma stepped up to send Scully the wrong way and put the destination of the points beyond doubt.
A second penalty five minutes from time put the tin lid on a miserable afternoon for Partick Thistle, Sow running through and being tripped by Scully as he rounded the keeper, who looked up from the turf to see the inevitable red card being held aloft by referee McLean.
With all of Thistle’s substitutes already called upon, one of them, Ryan Stevenson, volunteered to don the gloves. He couldn’t stop Sow’s high effort from finding the net though, and Paul Gallacher will now be pushed into action for next week’s game against Dundee with Scully suspended and regular number one Tomas Cerny injured for at least another three weeks.
“It is a major problem,” admitted Thistle manager Archibald.
“We will need to wheel out Paul Gallacher. We have a couple of younger boys as well but Paul has done well for us before. He is a good professional and he will be good to go.
“I thought we were very good first half. It was a set play that separated the two sides and we didn’t see that coming. We were asking for more of the same and wanted to keep getting the ball wide to (David) Amoo because I thought he was causing them problems but for some reason the second goal took the wind out of our sails and I was really really disappointed in the manner of that.
“You are still in a game at 2-0 but I was disappointed with the lads’ reaction and it did knock the stuffing out of us. It was a poor goal and a number of mistakes in it and we should have dealt with it better.
“It takes the wind out the sails, we had been unbeaten in three games but now we have to get back to training and back to basics. That wasn’t good enough. What shocked me was the performances in the two halves, they couldn’t be more far apart.”
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