Hearts continued their 150th anniversary celebrations by welcoming Tottenham Hotspur back to Tynecastle, their opponents from their centenary match back in 1974.
Before the game, fulsome tributes were paid to Hearts and Spurs legend Dave Mackay, and some of the Hearts heroes who took part in that centenary encounter between the sides were paraded before the crowd. They could have been doing with a few of them on the pitch.
The class of 2024 couldn’t come close to matching the 1-1 result they earned 50 years ago, going down by five goals to one in an entertaining encounter.
Brennan Johnson opened the scoring before the interval with a thumping finish, before half-time substitute Lawrence Shankland hauled Hearts level seconds after the restart.
Spurs youngster Will Lankshear would move Spurs ahead again though, before substitute Mikey Moore added a third, Djed Spence a fourth and Ashley Phillips prodded in a late fifth as Hearts fell apart in the end.
Here are the talking points from Tynecastle…
Angeball returns to Scotland
Former Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou wasn’t messing about upon his return north, including the likes of captain Heung-min Son, James Maddison Pedro Porro and Dejan Kulusevski in his line-up for this friendly.
Hearts more than held their own for much of the first half though, and in fact, it took until five minutes before the interval for Spurs to really click into gear. When they did, though, the speed of their passing exchanges around the box was too much for the Hearts defence to handle.
Hearts had squandered chances of their own at the other end, but when a lightning sequence between Son and Maddison on the Spurs left allowed the latter to fire across goal for Johnson, the striker made no mistake, slamming past Craig Gordon before the keeper could move a muscle.
Suddenly, Spurs were slicing through Hearts at will, a theme that would continue for the rest of the evening.
Hearts new boys show up well
This was a chance for some of the new arrivals in Gorgie this summer to show what they could do against a high level of opposition following the loss to Leyton Orient at the weekend, and they looked well up for it.
Debutant Gerald Taylor was the pick of the bunch, the Costa Rican standing out at right back with a performance full of energy and no little quality either.
An early burst up the wing got the crowd going, and he should have had an assist to his name after he picked out Kyosuke Tagawa at the back post, only for the forward to somehow slice wide of the open goal.
Yan Dhanda was also impressive as he provided the link between attack and defence, setting Taylor away for the cross that Tagawa should have converted, and picking out the forward runs of Cammy Devlin.
At the back, Daniel Oyegoke slotted in at right centre back and looked a solid enough addition before the late capitulation.
Tagawa won’t fill Shankland-shaped hole
Heaven forbid, from a Hearts point of view, that their star man should either be sold this summer or suffer from an injury, because his importance to his side was underlined here.
It wasn’t just the fact he gobbled up the chance Spurs presented to him on a silver platter seconds after coming on, typically fine finish though it was. It was also evident in the performance of Tagawa. Perhaps even more so.
The striker scored just three goals in 21 appearances all told last season, but two in the last two games of the campaign against St Mirren and Rangers had raised hopes that he might have been finding his feet at last.
Without meaning to be too harsh, it wasn’t at all clear here that he had managed to find the right feet when he was putting his boots on. Very much still a work in progress.
Gordon shows there’s life in the old dog yet
Nobody really needed reminded of the quality that Gordon possesses, but the save the 41-year-old produced in the first half here was vintage stuff.
Son broke through the Hearts backline and looked certain to score, especially when his effort took a nick off a Hearts body as it made its way towards the net. Somehow, Gordon threw up a glove and diverted it over the top though, drawing gasps from all ends of Tynecastle.
Zander Clark replaced him for the second half, but it will be interesting to see if he can maintain his position as Steven Naismith’s preferred starter when the season kicks off.
Defence a concern amid Frankie Kent scare
For all that Kent’s first half withdrawal after taking a Maddison free kick flush in the face was likely a precaution, Naismith won’t be pleased by how his backline collapsed late on against the Spurs youngsters without him.
Craig Halkett came on in his place, and he will hope to finally shake off the fitness issues that have dogged his career over the last few years. But on this evidence, whatever the preferred combination will be, the Hearts backline needs some serious work.
