Ally McCoist’s patience with the second highest paid squad in the country snapped yesterday after watching his side lose 2-0 to Hearts.
Stevie Smith was red carded in the first half of a bad tempered match punctuated by 42 fouls with only a couple of honest mistakes from referee Craig Thomson ensuring that the visitors finished the match with ten men when Kenny Miller and Kris Boyd could easily have seen red.
Sevco now trail Hearts by nine points and face difficult away games at Queen of the South and Hibs before the transfer window opens in January.
Surviving through to the end of the season would be a financial miracle with the pressure and stress of another Malmo type defeat obvious as McCoist spoke out after yesterday’s defeat.
“I’m really disappointed and I feel Steven has let his team-mates down,” the Sevco boss said laying the blame for his side’s defeat at the feet of the highly rated utility man.
“We were the better team in the first half by some considerable way but the sending-off puts us down to 10 men against an in-form team. After that, the frustration is possibly understandable but I’m not sure it’s excusable.
“Particularly in the second half, one or two needless challenges put us under pressure again and then you have to make decisions because you are down to 10 men and don’t want to lose any more.”
Kenny Miller was substituted shortly after escaping with just a yellow card and exchanged angry words with Kenny ‘Clipboard’ McDowall as he joined Boyd in the dug out.
With Hearts unbeaten and playing with a squad that they have budgeted to pay for until the end of the season the pressure is on McCoist to turn around the nine point deficit.
It looks like it will require hard work on the training ground to rescue Sevco’s title hopes with McCoist’s attempts at mind games back-firing as Hearts go from strength to strength.
“It will be interesting to see how Hearts cope with being the team out in front,” the £800,000-a-year Ibrox boss said last month. “I don’t get involved in mind games but this is all new for everybody involved.
“With the greatest respect to the Hearts boys, I don’t recall many of them winning anything. Most of our boys have won championship over the past couple of years. A few of them have won Scottish Cups as well but there’s not a lot of players from either side who have been involved in a league campaign that looks like it’ll go all the way.
“It will certainly be interesting to see how people react in different situations. I’m not just putting any question marks over Hearts – I’m questioning my own boys as well.”
Today’s league table suggests that the Hearts boys are handling the title ‘battle’ better than McCoist’s highly paid squad of stars.
