‘It’s only fitting that the game took place in the City of Discoveries… we all learned a lot about Hearts’

It’s fair to say there were few joyous Jambos on Saturday night after witnessing a Dundee filleting during a first-half collapse.

If it had lasted another 10 minutes you felt the hungry Dees would have scored a few more goals before the break, such was their joy in that period and Hearts looking out to sea.

It is quite fitting that this humiliating defeat took place in the City of Discoveries, as everyone associated with Hearts would have learned something from that game.

Supporting Hearts is a rollercoaster of emotions, with what appears to be numerous sporadic lows and highs, however this result will not define our season and will not be the ‘worst result’ that will happen between now and next May. .. we’re only two games into the season.

Questions have rightly been asked about Steven Naismith’s decision to change formation and return to a back three, despite an encouraging display against Rangers where we looked promising with a back four.

Naismith said he wanted to counter-attack Dundee’s two forwards and there are rumors that Yan Dhanda was struggling to find form, which is why he replaced him in the starting line-up with defender Daniel Oyegoke.

I would rather force the opposition to worry about our strengths and try to contain them, as Tony Docherty did. The worrying thing is that 10 minutes into the game it was clear that our central midfielders were being run over by Dundee’s impressive trio.

As soon as right-back Gerald Taylor escaped a red card, you could tell he and the rest of the team were all doomed. Forget the debate over formations at this point, their heads were in over their heads and who knows what Taylor was thinking when he put the ball into his own net moments later to make it 2-0.

I would have liked Naismith to address the glaring lack of leadership in our defensive third by bringing on Stephen Kingsley right there, as a touchline error soon followed.

The reaction came with the three substitutions at half-time, but we lacked the quality and perhaps the confidence to reverse the three-goal deficit, although we recovered one.

As said, we can’t jump to conclusions after a poor result, but we hope everyone has been analyzing this all week and can eradicate the plethora of errors that were on display in Dundee.

Next? A banana peel on the trip to face John McGlynn’s Falkirk. They are a confident team, given their unbeaten League 1 season last year, when they led them to the title, and their strong, unbeaten start to the Championship season.

I don’t believe Naismith disrespects Falkirk by making major changes to his squad and, frankly, he shouldn’t, given the players’ need to right the wrongs of last week’s performance. We could see some older, more experienced players returning to the starting line-up, such as Craig Gordon – as cup goalkeeper – and experienced defenders Craig Halkett and Stephen Kingsley.

If the fans’ outcry is heard and a defense of four is mobilized, I hope we can reduce this difficult League Cup tie by one goal.