Steven Naismith? Don’t believe what you read…

It is not often the media gets things wrong, is it (!)

Tonight Hearts have clinched the loan signing of Norwich forward Steven Naismith, in a deal which has had both Sky Sports and the BBC falling all over themselves to claim the Gorgie men ‘beat’ Rangers to his signature.

While Sky rarely get it wrong, this appears to be one occasion that is wide of the mark.

Ibrox Noise was split over the striker – some of us were desperate to re-sign him, some could not have wanted it less if they had tried and found the very idea divisive.

But let us make it clear – Hearts did not ‘beat’ Rangers to anything – Rangers chose Jason Cummings instead, a younger, fitter, quicker option.

This is not for yours truly to slur Naismith – I do feel he would have been a very useful signing, but if asked to choose between he and Cummings, as I did between Moult and Cummings, it would have been the latter both times.

The fact is Naismith simply begged Rangers to sign him. There is no shame in that. The guy wanted to be closer to his family, and we are not going to be hypocritical in changing our minds over our thoughts on him re: 2012 now that he has gone somewhere else.

And if we had wanted him, we would have signed him. It is as simple as that. He has been issuing come get me pleas for the past two months, clearly stating he wanted a return to Ibrox. It was not a mutual admiration society – Mark Allen, Graeme Murty and the board made their choice and went for the younger model.

And we are completely happy with that.

But the media would tell you otherwise.

In what world could Hearts beat Rangers on any level to anything? Rangers might not currently be the force we used to be, but we still have a much bigger budget, a much bigger stadium, much better players, and Hearts were even reduced to selling their star player for £300K.

No, Rangers looked at Naismith and decided he was not for us.

And decided Cummings was.

Case closed.