Hearts eased to their biggest home win in the Scottish Premiership for three-and-a-half years as they dismantled meek St Mirren 5-0 to remain on the coat-tails of Rangers and Celtic.
The third-placed Jambos dominated from the start and rarely looked in any danger from the moment Laurent Mendy fired them ahead in the 20th minute.
Calvin Miller then notched two penalties, either side of half-time, before further goals from Claudio Braga and Josh McPake ensured a smooth afternoon for Wouter Vrancken’s side ahead of their Conference League opener at home to Nordsjaelland on Thursday.
It was Hearts’ biggest league win at Tynecastle since they defeated Ross County 6-1 under Steven Naismith in April 2023, and they are now comfortably the top scorers in the league. Saints, by contrast, left Edinburgh licking their wounds after a fourth defeat in succession.
Hearts started brightly, with Harry Milne, Miller and McPake – buoyed by making his Scotland debut against Slovenia on Tuesday – all threatening early on.
Saints were offering little, although Killian Phillips tried to catch Beau Reus out with a lob from the centre circle after a misplaced pass from James Wilson.
A minute later Milne went clean through but saw his shot pushed over by Buddies keeper Jacob Chapman.
Hearts made a deserved breakthrough in the 19th minute. Miller floated a free-kick into the box and Mendy got his header all wrong, sending it back the way, but Saints’ Chris Mochrie inadvertently knocked it back to the former Forest Green midfielder, who pounced to lash a powerful finish, on the bounce, high past Chapman from 12 yards out.
The visitors were bedraggled, unable to generate any rhythm, and they fell further behind in the 32nd minute. McPake was tripped by Alex Gogic as he burst into the box, and Miller duly sent Chapman the wrong way from the spot.
Having seen his team outplayed in the first half, McLeish made a triple change for the start of the second half. But the first notable involvement of one of those substitutes, Liam Donnelly, was to give away a penalty for tripping Wilson in the box, and Miller stepped up to convert his second spot-kick in the 50th minute.
Hearts’ Calvin Miller (L) scored twice from the penalty spot
Miller turned provider four minutes later as his nicely weighted pass released Braga, who rounded Chapman before slotting home despite the efforts of two Saints defenders to get back and clear.
After Reus made a brilliant save to deny Calvin Ramsay, the outstanding McPake got himself clear in the box to fire past the exposed Chapman from eight yards in the 80th minute.
What the managers said…
Hearts boss Wouter Vrancken:
“From the first session (in the summer), the players liked what we were doing and they tried to make those steps and you see it today that they are trying to do it and succeeding.
“We try to play a kind of football that is positive and constructive and proactive, and not a reaction.
“I think people come to the stadium to see nice football, to see goals from your side.
“Also for the players, we try to play a style of football that, when you were a little boy, when you started playing football on the street, you played football to score goals, not to stay in front of your goal and prevent the goals.
“You want to score goals because this is the nicest feeling you have in football.
“We are trying to play a type of football where we can come in the positions as much as possible to get this feeling. Some days it will work better than other days, but it’s nice to see that it worked well today.
“It’s good for the guys that they have such a game where they felt comfortable on the ball. Also out of possession we were good. Hopefully it gives us more confidence for this run of games.”
St Mirren manager Craig McLeish:
“It’s not good enough from our point of view. We shot ourselves in the foot and gave away two penalties which are avoidable.
“There were individual errors for the other three and that’s not to take anything away from Hearts, who were excellent.
“You can’t come to places like this and expect to play football from the first minute, you have to earn that right. You have to fight and out-run teams and we didn’t do that at points.
“It’s not an excuse but we lost Niko Agrafiotis in the warm-up and he’s a big part of what we’re trying to do. We had to shuffle things around and it didn’t quite happen for us.
“We all have to take responsibility. I have to rectify it.”
