It’s far too early to offer any meaningful verdict on what Ian Cathro will bring to Hearts, but the judgement the home crowd delivered at the finish here required little in the way of decoding.
A cacophony of boos rang round all but one corner of Tynecastle after a game where Cathro’s new charges started slowly, briefly flared then all but disappeared. Hearts were bereft in the second half, a timid, shrunken version of what we know this side can be at its best.
They’ve been short of that too often this season, as a record of two wins in the last nine games make clear. But there was something especially alarming about how they subsided in this one, clearing the way for a Thistle victory the visitors somehow failed to claim.
Alan Archibald’s men had no fewer than four late chances to turn one point into three and climb off the bottom of the table. Chris Erskine and Kris Doolan were denied by heroic Jack Hamilton saves, Liam Lindsay nudged a header wide from point-blank range and the excellent Callum Booth smacked a shot off the junction of post and bar.
Cathro will have known what was coming at full-time. The reaction to his 74th minute removal of goalscorer Bjorn Johnsen and Jamie Walker for Robbie Muirhead and Tony Watt gave a fair idea.
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“I think we all feel the same reaction,” said the 30-year-old, the youngest ever manager in the Scottish top flight. “I can’t boo because I have to try and find the solution. Players, staff, fans, our reaction is the same; we feel the same thing. That is an understandable thing. We just have to stay together on that, which we will, there’s no doubt.
“If we reach a point down the line where everyone is fine with us drawing games at home I’d be more upset. I don’t want us ever to be fine with that — and we’re not fine with this.”
Cathro, resplendent in the shiniest pair of first-day shoes this side of Tynecastle High, is known as a man with a plan. From the look and sound of him as early as ten minutes in, it wasn’t for his team to play without width or tempo.
The first time Hearts upped the ante on both fronts, they scored. There was an element of good fortune to the strike, Liam Smith getting the break of the ball as Booth slid in to tackle him close to the touchline, but the full-back took full advantage of the chance to shine on his more natural right side.
From a position diagonally opposite his starting point of left-back, the 20-year-old measured a cross into the airspace of Johnsen, who calmly steered his header away from Tomas Cerny.
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Cathro didn’t go overboard with the celebrations, and generally cut a quietly urging figure, but we saw a more animated side when a series of 50/50 calls going against Hearts had him railing at fourth official Kevin Clancy.
The home side might have doubled their advantage just before the break, but Cerny got down to turn away Arnaud Djoum’s shot before Igor Rossi hit the bar with a header from the resulting corner.
Hearts had instant cause to regret not converting these near things. Thistle equalised with their first attack of the second period, Sean Welsh bulleting home a brilliant near-post header when picked out by Ryan Edwards.
Archibald’s side soared in both confidence and intent, and Ade Azeez will feel he could have pushed the ball further right of Hamilton’s outstretched leg when Doolan played him in shortly after. With the tide continuing to turn, Edwards had the home goalkeeper beaten with a rasping drive that flew wide.
Hearts grew more and more desperate, in every sense of the term. Without Prince Buaben, withdrawn at half-time with a calf injury and replaced by the ineffectual Conor Sammon, there was nobody to link the midfield and front line, which became two horribly detached silos. The restlessness of the home support morphed into outright dissent at Cathro’s other two substitutions, and Thistle had every opportunity to make his home bow even more uncomfortable.
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“Just now it feels like two points dropped because of the chances we had at the end,” said Archibald. “It was night and day. First half we went back to front too much and lost a poor goal, but I was much happier with the second.”
Hearts: Hamilton 8, Paterson 6, Souttar 6, Rossi 6, Smith 7, Cowie 6, Kitchen 5, Buaben 6 (Sammon h-t, 4), Walker 5 (Watt 74min, 5), Djoum 5, Johnsen 7 (Muirhead 74min, 5)
Partick Thistle: Cerny 7, Devine 6, Barton 6, Lindsay 7, Elliott 6, Welsh 7, Osman 6, Edwards 7, Booth 7, Azeez 6 (Erskine 67min, 5), Doolan 7