Far too easy for Kilmarnock attack, back to bottom of the table, Langer with reasonable debut - three takeaways from Hearts 2-3 Kilmarnock

Analysis from Tynecastle as Hearts fail short with a late rally against Kilmarnock

Killie's goals were far too easy

Is it a direct ball over the head of the Hearts left-back and into the channel? Well it's probably going to be a Kilmarnock goal, isn't it? That thought must have entered the mind of just about every Hearts fan in Tynecastle as they watched their team take to the game with real gusto and attacking intent, only to leave massive holes at the back that Killie gratefully accepted time and again. It was like the second half at St Johnstone all over again. There appeared to have been no lessons learned from how Hearts managed to let Saturday's game completely get away from them. The centre-back pairing of Craig Halkett and, in particular, John Souttar were poor, but they were rarely afforded any help, either in front of them or on the flanks. And as for Joel Pereira... well, he managed to let Killie score their third despite the ball being hit right at him.

Hearts remain in big trouble

Lewis Moore battles for possession with Stuart Findlay. Picture: SNS

This a wake up call for those who believed Hearts' survival was now a foregone conclusion. Not only were the hosts incredibly fragile defensively on their own turf, they also returned to the dressing room afterwards to find that several other scores had gone against them. You wouldn't think that a team who could beat Rangers and score three times at St Johnstone would be serious relegation candidates, but Wednesday's performance demonstrated that, as long as these defensive flaws remain, they're capable of losing to anyone on any night, regardless of how spirited the attempted comeback was at the end. There aren't a lot of great teams in this season's Ladbrokes Premiership, but the rest have shown they're capable of picking up results when it matters. Can we say the same about Hearts?

Langer had a reasonable debut

The German was thrown straight into the starting XI after Michael Smith failed to recover in time and Toby Sibbick was ruled out with a bug. Even though he was the first player substituted - that was more about Hearts needing to chase the game and him not having the legs to last 90 minutes - he didn't put in a bad performance. He kept things simple in possession, just about finding a Hearts man every time, and showed impressive energy to get about the field.