Skacel celebrates

By Graham Barnstaple
May 21 2012

It was meant to be a nail biting Scottish Cup Final between the two sides from the Capital, but it ended up the most one sided final for a long time.

Hibs travelled to Hampden looking to end the hoodoo of all hoodoos in Scottish football, by winning the Cup for the first time since 1902, while Hearts were looking to continue their dominance of their city rivals.

As it turned out Hibs tamely capitulated and their hoodoo runs for another year. Hearts cruelly exposed almost every weakness identified here last week.

They allowed Suso Santana to have a run at the feckless Pa Kujabi, who was culpable in two of the three goals scored when he was on the pitch before his red card.

In midfield Ian Black and Darren Barr were dominant against the equally feckless Soares and Osbourne. Some have said Pat Fenlon’s decision to line up in a 4-4-2 formation handed the game to Hearts, he may have watched Motherwell win at Tynecatle playing the same formation.

Sadly for the Hibs boss Soares and Osbourne are not as good asJenningsand Lasley for Well. Maybe this means Fenlon did get it wrong as he used the wrong personnel, but given what Hibs have on their books what choice did he have.

Both sides are about to go through major changes in the summer, Hibs have a number of loan players leaving along with out of contract ones. Personally I am not sure I would allow Pat Fenlon to put that side together given his performance in January.

Hearts, on the other hand, look as though they will lose at least Ian Black and Rudi Skacel, but will Paulo Sergio be there. He has had no conversations with Hearts to extend his deal, bit this is nothing new with Romanov and the way he goes about things.