Twenty points harvested from the 83rd minute onwards in all league games this season. Twenty points in the dying moments — and now 23 after Easter Road. That statistic alone should silence the doubters who kept questioning whether Hearts had the stomach for a genuine Scottish Premiership title challenge. Apparently, they do.
Blair Spittal and the Edinburgh derby that changed everything
Sunday’s Edinburgh derby was never going to be a calm afternoon. Hibs and Hearts in a title-race context is a recipe for chaos, and the match delivered exactly that — in the most dramatic fashion possible. Martin Boyle, playing his final derby before leaving Easter Road, gave the home side a seventh-minute lead. A vicious Jamie McGrath free-kick, a momentary lapse from Beni Baningime, and Boyle was there to sidefoot past the goalkeeper with the composure of a man writing his own farewell story. Hearts fans, already nervy, were staring at a nightmare.
Then the match fractured completely. Raphael Sallinger’s red card, just four minutes after Boyle’s opener, changed the entire shape of the afternoon. Handling the ball outside his own area — a clear, if slow, decision from the officials who took an agonising five or six minutes to reach the obvious conclusion. Hibs, suddenly a man down, shifted into siege mode. What followed was one of the most frantic halves of football Easter Road has seen in years.
Hearts dominated possession entirely. Before the break : 74% of the ball, 13 shots, 29 touches in Hibs’ penalty area. Yet the scoreboard refused to move. Hibs goalkeeper Smith was outstanding, and Hearts’ urgency occasionally tipped into panic — Derek McInnes himself admitted his players were excitable. That’s putting it mildly.
Felix Passlack’s second yellow, early in the second half, reduced Hibs to nine men. Still they held. Braga went one-on-one, Smith saved. Craig Halkett lashed one from distance, Smith saved again. Marc Leonard hit the crossbar with real venom. The Hibs resistance was almost supernatural in its stubbornness — a side defending with sheer willpower and nothing else.
McInnes turned to his bench. Sabah Kerjota came on and immediately became the difference. His drive to the byline forced Warren O’Hora’s own goal for the equaliser. Then, with five minutes remaining, Kerjota repeated the trick — pulling the ball back for Blair Spittal, who drove it home with conviction. Another late, late winner. Another moment that belongs squarely in the mythology of this rivalry.
Hearts at the top : context, numbers and what comes next
Three points clear with four games remaining. That is the cold, hard reality of where the Scottish Premiership title race stands right now. Before this derby even finished, news filtered through that Rangers had lost at home to Motherwell — a result that tightened the noose around their own ambitions considerably. Their chances aren’t dead, but they’re breathing through a straw.
| Club | Games remaining | Points behind Hearts |
|---|---|---|
| Hearts | 4 | — |
| Celtic | 4 | In contention |
| Rangers | 4 | Hanging by a thread |
Hearts host Rangers next at Tynecastle — a venue that has functioned as a fortress all season. Win that game, and the title mathematics shift dramatically in their favour. McInnes spoke after the match about the importance of winning your first post-split fixture. Hearts did exactly that. Celtic also did. Rangers did not.
This season has produced moments that could fill a highlights reel on their own :
- Craig Halkett’s 90th-minute winner at Tynecastle against Hibs in October
- Sallinger’s spectacular save to deny Hearts an injury-time draw in December
- Tomas Magnusson’s 88th-minute winner in February
- Kerjota and Spittal’s late double act at Easter Road in April
Every one of those moments has shaped the standings. Hearts’ capacity to extract points late in matches is not luck — it reflects depth, character, and a manager who trusts his bench. McInnes praised Kerjota’s guile specifically, noting how the substitute took defenders on and unlocked a Hibs backline that had repelled everything else Hearts threw at them. That kind of impact from a substitute doesn’t happen by accident.
The title is not won — but Hearts deserve to be believed
Four games remain, and every single one of them is winnable. Every single one is also loseable. No serious fan should be booking celebrations yet, and McInnes would be the first to say so. But the question posed to those who doubted Hearts’ credentials — do you believe in them now ? — feels increasingly hard to dodge.
What this squad has shown throughout this Scottish Premiership season is a refusal to accept defeat as inevitable. Even when Boyle put Hibs ahead on a sun-drenched Easter Road afternoon, even when the clock kept ticking and Hibs kept blocking, Hearts never stopped pressing. That mentality, more than any individual performance, is what separates a contender from a pretender.
The real test of McInnes’s squad now is maintaining composure in the coming weeks. Winning under pressure at Easter Road builds confidence. But back-to-back performances of that level require something deeper — squad harmony, tactical flexibility, and the belief that late goals aren’t coincidences but habits. Hearts have built exactly that habit in 2025-26. Whether it carries them to Premiership glory is the only question left worth asking.
