Laszlo calls for concentration as Hearts aim to get back on track

CSABA Laszlo is one of the most serious thinkers working in Scottish football at present. Don't be fooled by the emotional outbursts as he stands in the dugout or by his amiable, at times meandering conversations: this is a man who applies a profound rational analysis to the way in which the game is played.

It was therefore a novel experience yesterday to find the Hearts manager at a loss to explain the 3-0 defeat inflicted on his team by Dundee United last weekend. He was able to blame a lack of "concentration" on the part of his own players, but beyond saying that such things happen in football he was unable to offer an explanation of his team's attitude.

Laszlo insisted last week that his players would not be affected by the week-long delay in receiving their wages, and has talked before of a need for them to become more disciplined in terms of their attentiveness and positioning. For many spectators it was no coincidence that Hearts' heaviest defeat of the season so far came at the end of such an uncertain time, but after the loss at Tannadice, in which Eggert Jonsson was sent off, Laszlo refused to accept that explanation.

"Everyone asks me but at the moment I don't think about this," he said. "I would like to be a sportsman.

"If the ball is in the air and you don't do a good job and lose 3-0 you don't think about other issues. We came here for a good result."

Yesterday, he insisted that the preparation for the match had gone well, and that the result would have been different had the players replicated at Tannadice what they had been doing at training.

"We would have created a lot of chances if we did what we practised on the training pitch, but it was completely different football and for this I was very, very angry," he said.

"We must have more concentration after losing 3-0. The fluidity was not there in the first half.

"We must have more concentration, especially if we play away. The last 20 minutes gave me a little optimism – we played good football with ten guys. Before, with 11, we didn't have concentration.

"The aggressivity (sic) was not there, especially in the first 20 minutes. The team themselves must learn as 3-0 is a high score. We were not concentrating, but the team plays again on Saturday and hopefully we can win the game.

"Something was missing from the players last week and we lost. This is football. After the game against Kilmarnock we will have two weeks to prepare for the big derby game."

Laszlo has devoted some of his time in training this week to encouraging his players to think about what they did wrong at Tannadice. He believes that inexperienced sportsmen have a natural tendency to try to shrug off adverse events, but is convinced part of his job is to get them to confront their feelings.

"A lot of young people have this attitude," he said. "If they lose, they look towards the next game but you have to explain to them what went wrong.

"We don't have the experience to know whether to brake or accelerate. To find the balance, you need someone to tell the players what to do and this is not happening at the moment in games. We have Michael Stewart, Laryea Kingston and Christos Karipidis and they are growing."

Still in third place, Hearts have a 100 per cent record at home this season. But their crowds are down compared with last season and Laszlo acknowledged that the team had to extend their winning run at Tynecastle to entice more people back.

"Last season I think Tynecastle was full nearly every week. At the moment we don't have so many supporters here but we want to have them all back. For this we need success. We need to give something back.

"In football you have good and bad times. You can't win all the time but you can try. Last weekend I was positive after Tannadice as although we were 3-0 down we kept trying to the very end.

"The fans who were there standing in the rain could see that the players were not having their best day but that they never stopped trying and this is what I want from my players. Definitely."