Ewen Cameron’s Hearts meltdown goes into overdrive

A 6-0 defeat from Sturm Graz has spectacularly ended Hearts’ hopes of reaching the Champions League.

There were few tears in Gorgie last night as the People’s Champions of Season 2025/26 were out-played by the second best team in Austria.

Just over two months ago Hearts were top of the SPFL Premiership table. Going to Celtic Park needing a draw to become Champions of Scotland for the first time in 60 years.

Ewan Cameron, Tom English, the entire staff of BBC Scotland including Ryan Stevenson had the champagne on ice.

Few of them were Jambos. All detested Celtic and the domination of Scotland’s most successful club.

Alas their dream died, killed by Daizen Maeda. Assistant referee David Roome flagged for offside, a noble effort but rightly over-ruled.

Callum Osmand rubbed salt in the wounds with a third.

HEARTS, HEARTS ARE FALLING APART

Derek McInnes stormed out of Celtic Park. Soon he stormed out of Tynecastle as well, grabbing Lawrence Shankland and Cammy Devlin for his next job.

Hearts haven’t recovered from the ending to last season.

New boss Wouter Vrancken is giving off heavy Wilfried Nancy vibes.

A dreamer, full of bright ideas for a golden future while ignoring the present.

Whether he lasts 33 days like the worst ever Celtic boss is up for debate.

Cameron has been slaughtered all summer about the failure of his wee team. He has even started to convince himself that he might actually be a Jambo!

English is unconvinced. His Ann Budge pyjamas have been put in a bin bag. The bedroom posters may soon be taken down from the walls. Celtic’s title win left him almost destroyed.

Apparently last week Hearts were outstanding in their 4-0 defeat in Graz.

Some fans turned up to Tynecastle thinking that they had a fighting chance of turning the tie around.

Another fortunate VAR decision prevented them from going behind in the first half.

Graze reached for third gear midway through the second half, scored twice with Tynecastle quietly emptying.

COUNTING THE COST OF LOSING TO CELTIC

Next week Hearts face the losers in the match between St Gallen and Benfica in a Europa League Third Round qualifier.

The loser of that drops into a Conference League Play Off.

Before that Europa League tie Hearts are away to Aberdeen in the SPFL opener on Saturday.

It looks very likely that there will be no European group stage football at Tynecastle this season.

Had they held onto a draw against Celtic things would have been so different.

Hearts would have had a Champions League a Play Off to look forward to with the guarantee of a Europa League place as a consolation prize. Plus £5m as a sweetener for losing out at that stage in the Champions League.