Hearts cheers turn to jeers at toxic Tynecastle - and former player could be their executioner

The pre-match ritual of Hearts supporters right now is not just about pulling on a replica shirt and scarf. Clearing of the vocal chords is also required.

Cheers at Tynecastle have turned to jeers. Lots of them. The natives are very, very restless down Gorgie way as their team serves up one of the grimmest campaigns they could wish for. No season’s greetings for the boys in maroon, who sit at the foot of the Premiership.

Only a win this afternoon against St Johnstone will stop Hearts sitting at the bottom of the tree on Christmas Day. This would be a present no Jambo wishes to open, a spectacular fall from grace for a club that coasted to a third-placed finish in the 2023/24 season. With just three domestic wins and an embarrassing exit from the UEFA Conference League on Thursday night, Hearts fans have every right to be angry. Expectations are simply not being met.

Hearts are currently bottom of the Premiership table. | SNS Group

Europe has been Hearts’ safe haven for much of the season but now it is not a port in a storm. The club has not competed on the continent after Christmas since the 1988/89 term and after starting off their Conference League campaign with two good wins over Dinamo Minsk and Omonoia, hope was high of ending that wait. They simply required one more point from their four remaining matches to reach the play-off round by finishing in the top 24 of a 36-team ladder.

Granted, the three matches against Heidenheim, Cercle Brugge and FC Copenhagen were tough assignments - but a final-day clash with already-eliminated Moldovan minnows Petrocub at home was the free hit, an extremely winnable match that Hearts completely failed to take advantage of. They finished 25th on goals scored behind Serbians TSC.

Tynecastle turned toxic on Thursday night. Everybody got it from the supporters as early as five minutes in: the players (poor Alan Forrest in particular), head coach Neil Critchley, the board and chairwoman Ann Budge, who at full-time was told politely where to go by frothing fans. Poison coursed through the stadium.

Goodness knows what will happen today if Hearts lose to St Johnstone. There was hope that dispensing of Steven Naismith as head coach in early October and replacing him with Neil Critchley would elicit more from this group of players. Four wins out of 14 matches under the 46-year-old Englishman suggests mild improvement at best. This Hearts squad is lop-sided, loaded with similar types and lacking in pace, creativity and fortitude. At the back, Critchley is hamstrung by potentially season-ending muscle injuries to key defenders Frankie Kent and Stephen Kingsley. He does not have a full weaponry right now to come out fighting.

Those sort of factors won’t cut it with the Hearts fanbase, though. Even with those issues - every club has those throughout a season - Hearts should be higher up the league table. There is a galling lack of cutting edge, with key striker Lawrence Shankland still sitting on three goals for the campaign. They could not break down a Kilmarnock team that played with ten men for 84 minutes last weekend. Nobody else is stepping up to the plate during Shankland’s funk.

“Sunday is very important because we had a disappointing result last week but we'll have a game plan for St Johnstone and we've got to stick to it,” said midfielder Yan Dhanda, who has toiled to make an impact since joining from Ross County. “We've got to stick with each other because you have difficult periods in football. This is one of them but a couple of wins and everything changes. So we've just got to focus on the next game and beating St Johnstone.”

The good news for Hearts is that St Johnstone are one of the few teams they have beaten under Critchley, who presided over a 2-1 victory in Perth last month. Saints have also changed managers in 2024/25, replacing Craig Levein with Simo Valakari. The Finn has completely revamped the way St Johnstone play football, with a lot of neat passing and prettier patterns. They are only a point better off than Hearts but have something the Jambos continue to lack: goalscorers.

How ironic would it be if Makenzie Kirk, who Hearts deemed surplus to requirements, was their executioner in this match? The 20-year-old was a prolific goalscorer for the B team at Tynecastle but never seen as a first-team player. Hearts allowed him to leave in the summer and he has scored six times for Saints this season.

“Obviously, I thought I deserved a chance and should have had opportunities,” Kirk said in the build-up to this match. “But it’s not something you can dwell on. All you can do is move on and try to show what you can do. I have nothing against Hearts – they were very supportive of me when I wanted to go. It was time for something different in my career. I wanted a permanent deal so I could move forward.”

It is not just the son of Andy Kirk, St Johnstone assistant coach and ex-Hearts hitman, who carries a threat in attack. The unpredictable yet talented duo of Benji Kimpioka and Adama Sidibeh have pace and power. Right now, Hearts could do with any one of them.

Critchley says he has a plan for the future and has confidence he can turn Hearts’ fortunes around. He is already looking ahead to the January sales, where he can bring in his own players with the help of Jamestown Analytics, the much-vaunted Tony Bloom database. He is operating with an inherited squad and is being punished for recruitment failures back in the summer, when forward options were largely neglected. Left-back James Penrice is the only signing that can be called a true success.

Critchley, though, knows that this is a result-driven business and his honeymoon period is coming to an end with the boo-boys. With games against fellow relegation battlers in St Johnstone, capital rivals Hibs and Ross County all coming up in the space of the week, at least one win is required to pour cold water on a fire that is threatening to get out of control.