Why Hearts signed Sander Kartum as Neil Critchley reveals late team call-off and hails Hibs response

Kartum, 29, joined from Brann Bergen during the last transfer window and in only his second start for Hearts, provided two sumptuous strikes from outside the penalty box to be the matchwinner in Gorgie. He opened the scoring on 27 minutes by curling the ball into the roof of the net and then added the third with a smart finish with the outside of the foot on 68 minutes. Dundee had levelled on 50 minutes through Joe Shaughnessy before Simon Murray’s own goal put Hearts back in front just after the hour mark.

It was Kartum’s moments of class in only his second start for Hearts that elevated Hearts in a gripping cup tie and Critchley paid tribute to his midfielder’s technical ability.

“That's what we saw in him when we recruited him,” said Critchley. “He's obviously taken a little bit of time to get up to speed, which is understandable. We've seen his quality. that's been evident in training and he's been getting fitter and stronger all the time.

“He's come on from the St Mirren game where he had his first start. I think we see that tonight. He looks in better rhythm and they were two fantastic goals. I'm not sure how the second one went in really. I was expecting him to shoot off his right foot, but the lefties are normally reluctant to use their right foot.”

Critchley was pleased with the response of his team just five days on from losing 2-1 to Hibs in the Edinburgh derby. “I thought it was a really good game, a good cup tie,” continued Critchley. “At 1-1 the game's in the balance, but that was the perfect response from the group from last week. We had to show, again, a lot of character tonight and belief in what we were doing.

“This group continues to do that and we're making steps forward. We're in the next round and we can sit back and relax and watch all the others have a stressful weekend.”

Critchley had to reconfigure his defence after centre-half Jamie McCart pulled out of the team on the morning of the match due to a leg issue. Lewis Neilson stepped in to partner Michael Steinwender and the Hearts boss hopes that McCart’s issue will be nothing serious.

“Jamie trained yesterday,” explained Critchley. “He was in the team to play, but just didn't feel right. He's not feeling 100%. He just felt like he couldn't sprint and open up. That was unfortunate.

“With the defensive issues we've got at the moment, we can't take a calculated risk. Lewis came in and again, Lewis has been training really well. You could see this week, he had to bit between his teeth in the way he trained. For someone to come into a game like that and play how he played tonight, I thought him and Michael were quite a sound, solid partnership.”

Dundee manager Tony Docherty hailed his team’s response from going a goal down at the break and believed his team looked most likely to win in the wake of Shaughnessy’s equaliser.

“I was disappointed with the first half performance,” said Docherty. “I wanted the players to show more bravery, be better on the ball. I thought we gave away possession too often, we didn't retain possession.

“I challenged them at half-time. I said I don't want to go out of a cup, you know, being that team that are passive. I thought they came out in the second half and they showed that side of them, that bravery and I thought we got half-time exactly where we wanted them.

“We got the goal back with the real impetus. I thought the crowd were fantastic tonight, almost sucking the ball into that goal and I just think we had them at that stage. That's exactly where I wanted it and we envisaged the game being.

“But then there's moments in the game, you know, I think we've got a couple of breakaways and one in particular where we should just slip [Seun] Adewumi in and that's the game. That's the match winner for me.”