In the end it was a thoroughly deserved win for Heart of Midlothian at Rugby Park.
It wasn't as straighforward as the scoreline would suggest. Hearts edged a fairly even first half, taking a 1-0 lead into the break, before ruthlessly pouncing on two defensive errors from Kilmarnock to win the game.
A set piece, and another Craig Halkett goal, was the difference between leading at half-time and going in 0-0. The defender now has five for the season after 13 games played. His centre-back partner Stuart Findlay has four to his name.
It took Hearts 12 matches as a team to score that many goals last season.
In the second half, Alexandros Kyziridis and Claudio Braga were devastating and the Portuguese put the game beyond doubt with a brace.
Braga now has eight goals this season. He has set up another two. Kyziridis didn’t get on the scoresheet but is up to five assists after Saturday, added to his four goals.
A lopsided 4-4-2
After the match, Derek McInnes said that partnerships across the pitch have been key to the run of four consecutive clean sheets. This is one of the strengths of the 4-4-2: it has partnerships all over the field – the three pairings through the spine of the team, plus the two full-back and winger duos.
One of the potential weaknesses of the shape is that it can be overrun in the middle of the park against teams that play with a three-man midfield. However, that can be compensated for when you have a midfield two of Cammy Devlin and Beni Baningime in the form they are in.
Regardless of shape, McInnes likes flexibility in his team and there was a lopsided nature to the 4-4-2, as you can see from the average positions below.
Kyziridis played further forward on the left than Harry Milne on the right. There were even times in the second half when Hearts were effectively playing with a front three with Milne tucking in as a third midfielder.
In the first half, Milne often dropped back to help out defensively, sometimes finding himself behind right-back Oisin McEntee. The makeshift winger followed the runs of Killie’s left-wing-back Dominic Thompson while McEntee paid close attention to Greg Kiltie.
The home side’s shape – a 5-3-2/3-5-2 – was also lopsided. They started nominally with a midfield three, though Kiltie (No.11 above) on the left of it would drift out wide, while David Watson (No.12) on the other side was more likely to remain central alongside Liam Polworth (No.31).
Space on the left
That meant that Stephen Kingsley was often the spare man when the ball was on Hearts’ right and even in a more chaotic first half he was key to Hearts getting forward on occasion.
Quite often, Watson would race from his central position to close down Kingsley after he received the ball, affording the Hearts full-back time to receive the ball and to drive forward.
He was more influential in the second half and one example five minutes after half-time showed how the team were able to get forward on that side after switching the play.
After the sides exchanged a couple of long balls, Baningime took control and played a short pass to Milne. You can see the space Kingsley is in on the other side as Kyziridis starts moving forward, taking Killie wing-back James Brown with him.
Milne then found Braga around the halfway line and the forward passed back to Baningime, who just about gets his pass away under pressure. It is intended for Devlin, but he leaves it for Kinsgley to surge forward.
It ends with the full-back overlapping and linking with Kyziridis before getting a cross into the box.
Kingsley may not have been involved in the goals, but he was a large influence on Hearts getting forward and had more touches of the ball than anyone else in the game. He played an important supporting role for Kyziridis and Braga to work their magic.
That’s not to mention the 31-year-old's defensive contribution, helping his side to its fourth clean sheet in as many matches since he came into the side.
Pressure and pouncing on mistakes
As McInnes has pointed out a couple of times this season, games aren’t always decided by tactics and formations. Sometimes errors define matches.
There was a bit of both going on in Saturday’s win. Hearts settled into the game more in the second half and were by far the better team. How they worked the ball into midfield and switched play is what the manager is looking for, with perhaps the best example of this in action coming against Falkirk.
However, their second and third goals on Saturday evening came from pouncing on defensive errors.
For Braga's first, he pressures Kilmarnock defender George Stanger into an error that Kyziridis takes advantage of. For the third goal, Kyziridis presses Watson and without blinking is able to race onto his slack pass.
The duo's attacking metrics show up well and are worth a separate article, but their ability to press opponents also stands out. Looking at their Statsbomb radars below, which pick out related metrics to their relative positions, both rank high when it comes to pressure regains – a statistic that measures how effective a player is at pressing.
Having the awareness and desire to get an opponent's face is one thing, adding the touches of quality to punish errors is quite another.
Braga's goals, with the assistance of Kyziridis, were the difference between seeing out a comfortable victory and going into the final stages of the game harbouring a slender lead. It was also this improving Hearts team showing another way to win.
