John Souttar and Arnaud Djoum have both given their thoughts following the victory over Partick Thistle at the weekend.
Taking the one nil victory at Tynecastle over the weekend with head coach Robbie Neilson saying it had both been a good week and also a tough game, Souttar in his own post game interview now the fresh week is with us, is quoted by the Official Site as saying that for him, making it three clean sheets on the spin with three wins to boot – well you can’t ask for much more can you.
With the game meaning a 14th clean sheet of the season for Neil Alexander, Souttar’s January arrival has also seen four wins and four clean sheets as well, and following Championship promotion last year, being third – six behind Aberdeen and ten behind Celtic – does have you somewhat questioning calls for the gaffer’s head (even if accepted not everything has been perfect).
‘I`m just delighted with the result and the past week. It wasn`t the prettiest of games, but they never are at this time of year. When you have three games in a week, in bad weather, and you get three wins with three clean sheets, you just can`t ask for more.’
The Scotland Under 21 international has also picked up the official Man of the Match vote for the last three games, and he says he feels he’s already improved as a player in his month and a bit with us.
‘I`m already a lot fitter and sharper than I was earlier in the season. When I came in to Riccarton, we started working on things like fitness, strength and especially my heading. I’m enjoying my football again. Having two men like Craig and Robbie, international defenders, guiding me is just amazing too. They were part of the appeal for me coming here. I`m still young, and I`m going to make mistakes, but Hearts know that and I`ve been told not to worry about that. When they had a bid accepted and I spoke to them, they showed me they had a project. It`s a project for me, and my development as a player. They showed me a long term plan, which excited me and it makes me want to go out every game and repay their faith in me.’
With Djoum finding the winner in the game – his sixth of the season – he also couldn’t have been more pleased with how recent results and performances for the side have gone.
In his own interview he admitted that the goal came from a pre season planned set piece and he was thrilled it had the desired effect.
‘I`m always very happy to score because it means I`m helping the team. It`s good for me to score in front of our fans because they are so loud and passionate. We work on positioning for set pieces in training, so for each ball I have a role and a position. Today it worked for us, so the hard work paid off.’
Describing the week as being ‘very important’ he also knew the coming weeks would be just as important as we are close enough to at least upset Aberdeen if things keep going our way, if not even force Celtic into a double take – although that one might be a bit far fetched.
‘It was a very important week in the season for us. We had three games, got three wins and nine points so we are very close to the top of the league now. Now is the time for us to see what we can do. We have confidence in our ability. Today was a difficult game, but we managed to get the win. We have nothing to lose, we are assured the top six so now we can just focus on catching Aberdeen, and getting ourselves into Europe too.’
