Hearts caught up in stormy waters: Naismith responds to AGM critics, Kent's admission, ghastly Celtic record

The Jambos need a win to ease pressure and criticism – but history does not favour them

There have been some harsh words said about Hearts over the past seven days.

It all started at Pittodrie, when in the wake of losing a one-goal lead to go down 2-1 to Aberdeen in stoppage time, manager Steven Naismith accused his players of being “bullied” by the Dons. But the Jambos boss was unable to escape the venom himself. At the club’s AGM on Thursday, supporters vented their frustration at the style of play under him and the performances of many first-team players. One fan even queried why Naismith was not at the top table, alongside Andrew McKinlay, Ann Budge and the other directors, only for the supporter in question to be reminded that Naismith’s job is to coach a football team.

Only positive results can soothe such soreness from the Hearts faithful – but they have their work cut out on Saturday afternoon when they take on defending champions Celtic in the east end of Glasgow. Brendan Rodgers’ men took plenty of flak themselves after their unbeaten start to the league campaign was ended by Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. The “bullied” tag was labelled at them too after slipping up on Killie’s plastic pitch. Their win over Feyenoord on Wednesday in the Champions League means they go into this encounter with more zeal than their visitors.

Hearts defender Frankie Kent limbers up for Celtic during training on Friday morning.

Hearts fans looking for hope will not find it in the history books either. Their team last won in the league at Celtic Park way back in 2007 when Michael Pospisil, Andrew Driver and Kestutis Ivaskevicius scored in a 3-1 win. Twenty-seven top-flight matches between the two have been played since then at Parkhead and Hearts have drawn just three of them, conceding 74 times and scoring a measly ten goals of their own. It is an utterly wretched record.

Naismith can’t do much about that. He has never taken his Hearts team to Celtic Park. What he can influence is the way his team plays, although he was at pains to point out in his pre-match press conference that the way some opponents come to Tynecastle and camp in their own half makes it very difficult to play with the verve and panache many supporters crave.

"It's always going to be there,” Naismith said of the flak thrown his way at the AGM. “Being involved with the club, you are always going to feel it, but it's an opinion. At times, yes, I would say the football hasn't been the way we wanted it to be, but at other times it has been. From when I started as a player to now, the club has moved and the dynamic of the league has moved so much. The need to survive has changed so teams come to Tynie and you can't play waves of attacking football if they have ten men behind the ball on their own 18-yard box.

“Our last two home games have been like that so you need to win them a different way. Is it as entertaining as going end-to-end and having chance after chance? No, but teams are setting up that way to stop you, so you need to deal with that first. I experienced it as a player at some big clubs. For 90 minutes, it's not end-to-end. I'm pretty certain that, earlier in the season, there was some good entertaining football. Then the squad dynamic changes, which probably changes the formation, which has probably held us back in the respect of bodies in attack. We are asking more of our wing-backs to get forward and at times that hasn't happened, which leaves you less bodies in attack. We want to play it [more attacking football], at times we have played it, and other times we haven't.”

Steven Naismith has not escaped the criticism this week.

Hearts fell apart at Pittodrie when Aberdeen decided to go direct. Celtic play a far more intricate game. “It will be slightly different,” said Naismith. “I don’t imagine Celtic will be quite as direct. So what you’re trying to defend is different to last week. We work on it a lot during the week. There’s going to be times you don’t have the ball and it’s more about your positioning than your actual defending. Then in the moments you can go and win the ball you need to go at it and not be tentative. That’s where we can’t show any nervousness or negativity ... when it’s time to press we press and we have to be committed 100 per cent. That gives you the best opportunity especially when you’re playing away to the Old Firm.”

Defence has been one part of Hearts’ team that has largely functioned well this season. Centre-half Frankie Kent, a summer signing from Peterborough, has been one of the more impressive performers and will taste Celtic Park for the first time. The Englishman admitted some of the criticism has stung. “We knew it wasn't good enough – especially in the second half,” Kent said of the Aberdeen defeat. “So there's things that we've touched on throughout the week, things we need to get better at. Hopefully we start tomorrow. It [being called bullied] is not nice, obviously it hurts anyone's ego being told that by your manager, but it's one of those things. You have to bounce back from it, react to it, and prove that's not the case.”

Asked if the condemnation was fair, Kent was honest. “Probably,” he replied. “That second half, yeah. It was difficult to take. We knew we didn't play well in the second half. There were things that we needed to sort out on the pitch and blah blah blah but it just wasn't happening. I'm not saying it was good enough, but it's behind us now. We can't rest on it, we need to react and there's no harder game than against Celtic, away at theirs.”

History would certainly suggest so.