Neilson – We’ll Remain Positive

Despite a two one loss to Celtic in the Scottish League Cup last night, head coach Robbie Neilson has said Hearts will remain positive.

Speaking to the Official Site following the game on home soil last night, the gaffer explained that he felt he could be happy with the performance and that there were plenty of positives he could take from the game.

However both goals for him were very sloppy.

‘The players gave me everything tonight, so I`ve no complaints. First half we kept our shape, created a few chances, and the gameplan worked. Griffiths bundles through three tackles that we should clear. The second goal was sloppy again, so that`s something we`ll need to look at, but I`m not going to complain too much about it.’

With some questions about whether or not Hearts should be doing better than we currently are, Neilson rightly dismissed those saying we were already ahead of his expectations for the season following our Championship title win last term.

‘We`ve come a long way from two seasons ago but we`re not quite where we`d like to be yet. We want to be beating Celtic regularly. We`re still a newly promoted side and we went through administration not that long ago. If we`d had a few more minutes I think we could have maybe snatched something. Celtic were scrambling to get clear in stoppage time. This just shows how far we`ve come in that we`re devastated at losing a game like this. Last season at this stage, we got beaten 4-0, and now we`re making progress. They`re back here on Boxing Day so that`s another chance for the players to show me how much more they`ve progressed from tonight.’

With Arnaud Djoum impressing again in his performance as a substitute and notching his first goal for the club as our consolation on the night, Neilson picked him out for praise saying that he expected him to go on and be a big player for us in the future.

‘Djoum is a player who can drive forward. Last ten minutes we needed his energy, and he`s going to be a big player for us for the rest of the season, very important, he`s done really well for us.’

Ending his interview, he went on to talk about the January transfer window and whilst he wouldn’t be overly drawn on whether he would make a move or not, he confirmed funds were available but he was happy with what he had at his disposal at the moment.

‘I have a great squad right now, and I have every faith that they`ll be able to improve for the rest of the season, but if we can add players who`ll give us value then I`ll look at it. There`s money there if I need it, Ann`s been fantastic and the Foundation are backing us. We`re way ahead of expectations with the long-term plan. We have to keep developing slowly but surely, and developing is the priority for this club.’

Callum Paterson was also speaking after the game and he admitted that slack defending had let us down on the evening.

‘We lost two slack goals tonight, which is disappointing after we got a good result at the weekend. In training, we were working on blocking crosses and stopping them getting down the wings, but we didn`t do it tonight and we were just slack down the two sides. Celtic are a good team and we showed the respect we thought they deserved and tried to catch them on the break. They had a lot of the ball in the first half, which was our game plan, but they never caused us any trouble and it was working, but losing those two goals killed us.’