Wednesday night's come-from-behind victory over St Mirren represented a first for Heart of Midlothian in the Scottish Premiership this season.
It was the first time the team has won a league game having fallen behind.
It wasn't a pretty game at Tynecastle Park against the Buddies but Hearts got the job done. It was a win that put the team into the top six ahead of the Edinburgh derby. Now only five points separate Aberdeen in third and Hearts in sixth with Hibs and Dundee United on the same points as each other in between.
With the quick turnaround between the St Mirren game and the focus shifting to what is shaping up to be a blockbuster occasion at Easter Road, Joel and Craig picked three subjects to explore from the 3-1 victory over St Mirren.
Off night
The biggest positive from a Hearts perspective was winning while not playing well. The team lacked a bit of fluidity and for long periods it was a case of it being an off night collectively and individually.
Over the course of what could be a 50-game season, that happens. It happened a lot in the first half of the season but there has been a marked improvement in recent months. Still, you get nights like these.
St Mirren were good in that they pressed aggressively, moving the ball forward quickly, and looked to put Hearts under pressure.
At the same time, Hearts didn't help themselves and it was something Neil Critchley mentioned after the game.
"We didn't play particularly well in the first half with the ball," he said. "Our quality wasn't good enough. We turned the ball over too many times.
"We made basic mistakes on the ball which then allows them to build momentum in the game and allows them to do what they're good at, which is play forward, hit direct balls, and it was a stop-start game."
It was, according to Critchley, hard for the team to build rhythm and that was evident watching it back. Normally when watching a game back you tend to see more positive aspects than at the game. That wasn't the case on this rewatch.
Four moments in the first 20 minutes demonstrated what Critchley said.
Kartum pass
First, we had Sander Kartum. The Norwegian took his time to find his feet in the midfield, whether it was the pace or physicality of the game.
His performance early on was summed up by a simple pass to Beni Baningime going awry.
One of the best moments from a Hearts perspective during those difficult 55 minutes before scoring came in the 14th minute. St Mirren pressed aggressively with Killian Phillips haring about, supporting his two forwards.
Hearts played through it well thanks to Beni Baningime.
Penrice has developed an effective and productive relationship with Blair Spittal down the left. Early on you could see that it wasn't quite the same between Penrice and Calem Nieuwenhof.
There was a pass on with Penrice going outside and opening up a crossing opportunity. The Australian midfielder chose to move infield instead.
Hearts did get Shankland the ball in that No.10 position a couple of times. One was highlighted above. This situation saw Nieuwenhof knock a pass into the Hearts captain in space in the middle of the pitch.
Shankland opts to try to play a first-time ball in for Kabangu and doesn't get his connection quite right.
In that situation, you want him to turn and drive with the ball with two options in front of him to open up the St Mirren defence.
Performance contrast
Hearts failed to get going for around an hour. By half time they had only registered three shots, just one of them on target. That was with 60% of the ball.
It didn’t feel like it at the time that Hearts had more possession, likely down to St Mirren being more dangerous with their opportunities.
After the match, Critchley said: “Our quality wasn't good enough. We turned the ball over too many times. We made basic mistakes on the ball which then allowed them to build momentum in the game and allowed them to do what they're good at, which is play forward and hit direct balls, and it was a stop-start game.
“It's hard to build rhythm. So we said we've got to show more composure, make more passes.
“Maybe it's been a while since we've played in a game where we've got the ball and we're having to control the game.
“That's just going to be the natural development of our team and who we want to be. I want us to become a team that controls the game with the ball and passes the ball. If you've got the ball, the opposition can't score.
“I just felt we made some basic technical errors in the first half.”
Comparing the pass networks from Wednesday night to the previous home game – ironically a 3-1 defeat to Rangers – clearly shows the contrast in performance.
The images below show the average position of players relative to where they took their touches. The larger the circles, the more passes played by that player, and the thicker the lines, the more passes played between those two players.
Hearts v Rangers
One stark difference is on the right-hand side. Against Rangers, Adam Forrester was able to get up the pitch fairly regularly, whereas Gerald Taylor found it much more difficult against St Mirren.
Playing just ahead of the Costa Rican, on the side of the midfield diamond, was Kartum, making his first start for the club.
The Norwegian was involved in the build-up to Nieuwenhof’s goal but only made 11 passes in the game before he was substituted with around 25 minutes to go. That’s the same number of passes as Craig Gordon – only Kabangu and James Wilson in the Hearts starting XI played fewer.
Wilson’s average touches in each game also stand out. Again, likely due to things not clicking down that right-hand side.
By contrast, during a similar number of minutes on the pitch against Rangers, Jorge Grant made more than double the number of passes to Kartum with 26.
“Maybe it's been a while since we've played in a game where we've got the ball and we're having to control the game,” added Critchley.
“That's just going to be the natural development of our team and who we want to be. I want us to become a team that controls the game with the ball and passes the ball. If you've got the ball, the opposition can't score.”
The difference on Wednesday night was that, despite these troubles, Hearts found a way to win the game in the second half.
Added to the dogged win away to St Johnstone the week before and other fairly recent results such as the 1-0 win at Tannadice, it is encouraging to see the team find new ways to win – despite still being a work in progress.
With Critchley's desire to dominate possession and have more control, Hearts still require improvement in such instances.
Monstrous McCart
After three clean sheets in a row to start 2025, Hearts have kept just one in the last seven outings. In recent weeks, there was an element of misfortune in the loss to Rangers, scoring two own goals, while against St Johnstone the team looked vulnerable from crossed balls.
Even though there was the concession of a goal against St Mirren, the team defended well against what the Buddies offered and threw at them, especially in the first half.
Both Michael Steinwender and Jamie McCart had strong performances, especially the latter, before and after being flattened by Phillips.
Wednesday was the perfect example of why every team in Scotland requires at least one centre-back who is strong and dominant in the air. McCart was that player. From 11 aerial wins (the joint-most) on the night he had a 73 per cent win ratio (the highest of any player who had six or more aerial duels).
McCart has played less than 600 minutes in the Scottish Premiership since joining but of all players to have played over 300 minutes at centre-back, the early returns are positive. McCart is top two for the number of aerial wins per 90 minutes (7.04), aerial win success rate (81 per cent), ball recoveries, clearances, and being dribbled past (ie, not being dribbles past).
