ALL of the usual platitudes which receive an airing following a bad result were trotted out after Hearts failed to overcome Dunfermline at home in their final Betfred Cup group game at the weekend.
The performance and inability to progress to the knockout stages were unacceptable. The players and coaching staff were just as angry and disappointed as the supporters. They were confident they could turn things around.
But such banal soundbites are having an increasingly hollow ring. There is a sense of inevitability about Ian Cathro’s reign at Tynecastle. It is surely a case of when, not if, the two will part company now.
Cathro should get time to turn things around. The 31-year-old has recruited extensively during the close season. He can, with some justification, argue that it will take time for his new signings to settle in and his team to gel.
But it is clear the Hearts fans who barracked their own manager after his team drew 2-2 with Championship opponents at at Tynecastle on Saturday and finished third in Group B behind them and League Two outfit Peterhead have seen quite enough and want change. The vitriol reached previously unseen levels.
Ultimately, it is them, not director of football Craig Levein nor chairwoman Ann Budge, who will decide whether he stays or goes.
The capital club have four away games in the Ladbrokes Premiership coming up now. Being defeated by Celtic at Parkhead this weekend will be no sacking offence.
However, if they perform as woefully as they have in their last two games against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park, Rangers at Ibrox or Motherwell at Fir Park after that the clamour for him to be removed will grow and become impossible for his employers to ignore.
There was little if any evidence at the weekend, when Hearts were outfought and outplayed at their own stadium by significantly understrength opponents from the league below, that Cathro will be able to turn things around in the forthcoming fixtures and survive in his role.
The Hearts hierarchy should certainly be applauded not derided for having the bravery to make such a bold appointment last December.
The former Dundee United youth supremo and Rio Ave, Valencia and Newcastle United assistant had an impressive reputation in Scotland and further afield in Europe as a progressive coach.
Concerns, though, that the then 30-year-old, who had never played at senior level before or been a manager in his own right, may find taking charge of a club of such a size and stature too much for him have proved well founded.
Cathro would appear to have strengthened well – something which could not be said of his recruitment drive in January shortly after he took over – this summer by bringing in Scotland centre half Christophe Berra and Northern Ireland striker Kyle Lafferty among others.
But, if anything, his team has regressed. The ease with which Dunfermline scored at the weekend, first through Joe Cardle and then through Declan McManus, was simply staggering.
Going forward, things were not much better from Hearts. Cathro is supposed to have an aversion to playing direct football, to bypassing the midfield and shelling the ball upfield to a striker, but there was no sign of the patient build-up play for which he was renowned when he arrived.
The late equaliser which Esmael Goncalves bundled in from a few yards out with three minutes of regulation time remaining came from a Malaury Martin free-kick that was hoofed upfield from just over the halfway line.
The Hearts players certainly fought hard to get back on level terms. They could easily have snatched an injury-time winner, gone through and eased the mounting speculation over their manager’s future. Cole Stockton fired wide near the death.
But if the top flight club had progressed then it would simply have glossed over the serious problems which exist.
Cathro is an articulate, hard-working, pleasant and intelligent young man who has a long future in the game ahead of him in some capacity. But he is clearly failing to get his message across to his charges and his side isn’t performing to the required standard as a result. There is only one outcome in the harsh world he now occupies when that is the case.
It would appear that possessing an in-depth knowledge of football is one thing, having the ability to inspire footballers to perform is quite another.
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