\n<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
Well, quite. Scott Allan, the former Hibs and Celtic midfielder, was a bit more eloquent in his assessment.<\/p>\n
“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. <\/p>\n
“To win like that, clean sheet as well, it says so much about what you’re building in there. <\/p>\n
“Derek McInnes will not be worried about that performance. What a position that puts Hearts into, going into that game on Sunday.”<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“If they get three points at Ibrox, I think they’ll win the league,” Stevenson predicted. A big call for a big game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n