The late goals are not the only habit that Hearts are forming. Winning the hard way, getting maximum points from a bare minimum performance, is something that title-winning teams do too.
“If you want to challenge for titles and win leagues, you have to win ugly, and Hearts did that tonight,” former Celtic defender Charlie Mulgrew told Premier Sports.
He was not the only pundit to comment on Hearts’ below-par performance. While McInnes named an attacking side, they looked timid in the build up, struggling to stay calm in the typical chaos of an Edinburgh derby.
“They’ll not really care about the performance, they’ve got 12 games to create history,” former Hearts midfielder Ryan Stevenson, who also had a hard job picking a man of the match, told BBC Sportsound.
“Harry Milne, for me, he tried everything he possible could to affect the game, to drive Hearts forward. Other than him, pretty much all of them were stinking.”
Well, quite. Scott Allan, the former Hibs and Celtic midfielder, was a bit more eloquent in his assessment.
“Tonight was such a big game and to not play well at all… I couldn’t see Hearts scoring a goal, I thought there was only going to be one winner and it was Hibs,” he reflected.
“To win like that, clean sheet as well, it says so much about what you’re building in there.
“Derek McInnes will not be worried about that performance. What a position that puts Hearts into, going into that game on Sunday.”
Ah yes, the game on Sunday. Rangers at Ibrox. Hearts won there back in September, their first victory away to the blue half of Glasgow since 2014.
No-one could have imagined then that, the next time Hearts came to town, the visitors would still have a lead over their hosts in the standings.
“If they get three points at Ibrox, I think they’ll win the league,” Stevenson predicted. A big call for a big game.
