Steven Naismith knows he is under growing pressure to put an end to Hearts’ miserable start to the season – but believes his summer signings need more time to settle at Tynecastle.
The Jambos have lost three and drawn one of their first four Premiership matches this season and have already been dumped out the Premier Sports Cup by Championship side Falkirk. Naismith‘s men were also defeated by Viktoria Plzen in the Europa League qualifying play-off round and have now dropped into the revamped league phase in the Conference League.
Some sections of the Tynecastle support have started to turn against their under-fire boss, with the players departing to a chorus of boos in the 1-0 home loss to Dundee United before the international break. The former Scotland striker understands the frustration from the stands but is confident that the extra time on the training pitch can help them turn things around, with the Jambos still trying to bed in their 10 summer signings.
Speaking to the Hearts Standard, he said: “If you are at Hearts and not winning games, there is an expectation there. The same kind of things that were an issue at the start of last season. I think what’s lost in this, a lot of people have spoken of our good recruitment over the summer but every player we’ve signed has come from a lower-level team or lower expectation team coming into Hearts. That doesn’t just mean it is all going to click.
“I was very conscious last season, new players coming in are going to need time. In this day and age, you don’t get that. There is not any sentiment or understanding of the change that happened over the summer. People look at us, we got third, we got Europe so we need to get better than that but where my mind goes to is, name a club outside the Old Firm that has gone on that path and has had that straightforward progression, progression, progression?
“It doesn’t happen because the margins are so fine. Every team in the league is so well organised now. It’s harder to beat them and then that demand of playing in Europe and consistently going game after game, it’s tough.
“With most international breaks we try to be as productive as we can with them”, he added. “We normally try to arrange a game which we managed to do this time.
“We then touched on the areas that are in most in need of improvement short term. The days have been very useful. You lose the internationals which isn’t ideal but for everybody else, particularly the new signings the break has been good for them.”
The Gorgie club have score just two goals in their opening four league games and have also conceded 10, more than anyone in the top-flight so far this season. But Naismith is convinced they can iron out the errors at both ends of the park.
He stated: “In some respects when you look over a year ago there are similarities, we weren’t creating enough chances, we were probably playing too safe,” was Naismith’s assessment of the attack on reflection of the first seven games. “That’s a lot of what I’ve felt has been happening in these games.
“It’s easy to look at the results and say it is not good enough but if you go into the games a bit more there are elements that have been decent. The goals we have lost have been really, really poor from our point of view. We didn’t make the right choice, we made the safe choice when we had possession a lot of the time.
“Ultimately where we sit within the league and where teams see us they make it more difficult for us, they sit in a low block. Dundee United did that. We picked the wrong option too many times which played into their hands. We want our forward players to believe they can go forward, they can try something and not worry about losing the ball.
“Some of our newer forward players have maybe not understood that pressure that comes with playing for Hearts. When the game is tight and maybe not a lot of chances, take the wrong option and you can sense the frustration from the crowd, it’s then how you deal with that. Our newer players are going to take time to deal with that.
“All that has played into the mix of it. We’ve worked on that quite a bit over the last week or so.”