Gary Mackay: Time is right for Larry to impose himself

Published on Monday 19 October 2009 10:04

ID like to applaud Lee Wallace on a really good performance for Scotland last weekend and for another solid display in the domestic league against Aberdeen on Saturday.

He's done a lot of travelling and playing over the last couple of weeks and I think he is an example of how players can fit their international and domestic commitments into their schedule without either of them suffering.

We've all seen this season how horribly wrong it can go when country comes before club and I think Lee deserves a lot of credit for the way he has gone about his business.

When you've had the kind of positive press that Lee has had on the playing side of things, it is a real test of your development and maturity to see how they cope with it. Young players obviously want to go out and show that the manager was right to pick them to play at international level and I think that Lee has done that. I am sure that he will kick on in the weeks to come.

On the other end of the scale, Larry Kingston came back into the team against Aberdeen, albeit as a second-half substitute, and as everyone knows it was his first appearance of the season for the club. Hopefully, though, he will knuckle down and it will be the first of many.

I think the timing of his return was always going to be important and an away game to Aberdeen was probably just about right. I thought that in the last seven or eight minutes after he came on, Hearts probably had more chances than they had accumulated throughout most of the match. Everyone knows that Larry is a quality player when he is involved and that Ghana will name him in their squad for the African Nations, but he has to realise that it works both ways.

From Hearts' perspective, when you are paying someone good wages and he has talent, then you have to make sure that talent is used to your benefit.

If we are going to climb back up the league table then we need someone who can control a game, score goals from open play or set-pieces and Larry can do all of that. But he must produce on a regular basis – and this must be unconditional because we can't have him going out and playing for Hearts but trying to protect himself from injury at the same time because he's too busy thinking about the African Nations. Larry could be coming back into the side at the right time because our record hasn't been the best so far this season and we still haven't won a game away from home since February.

Saturday was frustrating for myself and the rest of the travelling support. I know people are always saying that it's great to see players going about their business with a smile on their face but I honestly couldn't have headed the ball the way David Obua did in the dying minutes on Saturday and then turned away having missed that kind of opportunity with a big smile on my face.

Maybe it is just the kind of nature that the boy has, I don't know, maybe he is a laid-back character. For the 1,200 Hearts supporters who were there though, I don't think they would have been too impressed.

There's a time and a place to play the game with a smile on your face, and I don't think that was it. Duncan Shearer and Sandy Clark were sitting just along from me at the weekend and I don't think any of the two of them would have looked quite so happy to have missed a chance like that and I certainly wouldn't have either.

There were parts of the game Hearts were good in, and there were parts of the game that they were not so good in and the goals are still a problem. The last I heard, Csaba Laszlo had watched the highlights of the Liverpool versus Sunderland game and was scouring the market for a beach ball on a free transfer!

Robbo had a great goalscoring record for Hearts but even that beach ball has done better – one appearance, one goal. I don't think anyone will feel as big a balloon, though, as the Liverpool fan who threw it onto the pitch.

Don't become a pushover, Suso

SUSO has to watch how easily he goes to ground because I think he can be a very good player when he stays on his feet.

Sometimes you have to stand up to your opponents in football, especially in this country and if he can just add that strength to his game then I am sure that he will be a huge success.

There was an incident in the game at Pittodrie, when the Aberdeen supporters and players were shouting for a penalty after a tussle between Jose Goncalves and young Peter Pawlett but it was never a spot-kick. The Hearts defender simply used his body strength to his advantage and ultimately that is what Suso is going to have to do.

If he learns to stay on his feet and to stand up to other players physically, then there are a lot of defenders who are going to be run ragged by him because he has the tenacity and the ability to cause them real problems.