Sergio admits his youngsters were ‘nervous’

HEARTS manager Paulo Sergio believes his young charges will only improve.

The Portuguese has predicted a difficult month, with player sales inevitable in order to ease the club’s finances and satisfy the Scottish Premier League’s demands over the payment of player wages, which were delayed in each of the last three months.

On the evidence of Saturday’s 1-0 win over Auchinleck Talbot at Tynecastle, the outlook on the field appears concerning if Hearts will be forced to rely on youth. However, Sergio has confidence in his young talent. “I believe in our young players and I believed it was a game in which I could give a chance to them,” said Sergio, who made eight changes from the team which beat Hibernian a week ago. “If they can’t deal with a game like this, they can’t deal with an SPL game. They have to live those kind of experiences to get ready, because the future of Hearts is with them.

“Step by step we’re going to put them in place. If you saw some of them training you’d see what I mean. Some of them were nervous. I said to them play the way you train every day.”

Fraser Mullen had a penalty saved after 20 minutes and Hearts squandered numerous further chances before Gordon Smith’s 84th-minute winner. Smith told Hearts TV: “I was delighted to get my first goal at Tynecastle. The most important thing is we’re in the next round.”

Hearts have now won four in a five-match unbeaten run and return to SPL duty at home to St Mirren on Satrurday. Smith added: “St Mirren will be a tough game, but we’re looking for the three points.” Auchinleck goalkeeper Andy Leishman denied Hearts on numerous occasions.

His manager, Tommy Sloan, said: “He’s got a huge presence and can come for things and make it look easy at times. He’ll get better.”

Sloan would not be surprised if approaches are made for Leishman, but the manager believes the 23-year-old goalkeeper would only be persuaded by a move into professional football and not the lower reaches of the Irn-Bru Scottish Football League.

He added: “We’ve a lot of players who could play in the bottom couple of leagues. Most wouldn’t move for that It’s got to be at a decent standard. If it was the First Division or the Premier League they might think about that.

“I’ve always said we’d do well in the bottom two leagues and I think we maybe proved a wee point (against Hearts).”