Hearts vs Dundee United

United fell to another comprehensive defeat as Hearts moved back into third place with a comfortable win.

"They're bruised at the moment, but we can't just say everything will be OK. It's early in the season, but we've had a really chastising four days as a collective. I'll own the responsibility of the collective, but individually they need to look at their own performances and where they're at. You can't have that so early in the game, but that's nothing to do with Thursday, it's just to do with doing the fundamentals right early in the match. We've had a really sore four days and you find out more about yourself in these situations, but we need to dig deep as we've got a big game next weekend." There were patches of the game where we were OK but we need to be better than OK for 90-plus minutes. To come to venues like this and win, we need to be better.

We give the Hearts players a mark out of ten after an excellent 4-1 win against Dundee United at Tynecastle ...

Barrie McKay: Drifted in and out the match but there were moments of beauty as he worked to help break down the United rearguard. Taken off midway through the second half. Alan Forrest: Helped hive Hearts their early impetus and involved in the attacks but was starved of supply as half progressed.

cinch Premiership Hearts 4 DUNDEE UNITED 1 3pm Sunday 14th August Tynecastle Park Early goals in both halves helped Hearts on thei.

But late on, United were caught out on the break once more. This time it was Barrie McKay who picked up the ball on the left-hand side and cut inside to beat his man before curling a low-range effort into Birighitti’s far corner to put the home side 2-0 up. Alan Forrest was the first to drive at the United defence, forcing Birighitti into a save.

United suffered a demoralising 7-0 annihilation against AZ Alkmaar in their midweek Europa Conference League qualifying tie and that misery was merely ...

McKay was allowed time to drift inside from the left and exploited it with a raking right-footed shot from 25 yards. Birighitti suffered as goals flew past him in Alkmaar and again looked uncertain. They sat deeper as the first half progressed, which may be a portent of things to come in Switzerland. By the interval, it seemed obvious that Hearts could kill this game with a braver approach rather than retreating so much. Two wins and a draw from their first three Premiership fixtures indicates decent form for confronting the Swiss champions. However, United reduced the deficit via the penalty spot with 20 minutes remaining.