Steven Naismith outlines ‘mental’ aspect of Hearts’ loss to Celtic and has say on fans’ boos

Hearts manager Steven Naismith lamented the cheap nature of his team’s goal concessions in the 4-1 Premiership defeat by Celtic at Tynecastle.

The visitors took the lead through Matt O’Riley after four minutes and never looked back, with Daizen Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi and Tomoki Iwata also finding the net. Hearts scored themselves through Lawrence Shankland but never managed to compete with Celtic.

"We gave up really sloppy goals, that's the biggest thing in any game,” said Naismith. "That's the last two games where the goals that we have conceded are now at the level we should be at and where we want to be at. How sloppy they were and when we conceded them were mental.

"It doesn't give you a chance to get into the game when you lose a goal after three minutes. That was the theme throughout the game - all four goals were avoidable. When you are trying to get back into the game and you lose a goal at the wrong time, it kills the game and that's inevitably what happened.

"There was a bit of everything within the goals we lost. Our intensity when we were closing down wasn't good enough. In the game, there are split seconds where players need to make decisions and ultimately they are going to decide whether it's a good action or bad action and every goal today we picked the wrong action and that gave Celtic good opportunities which we highlighted before the game.”

The few Hearts fans that remained at full time booed the team off the pitch. Naismith understands their frustration. “Whenever you drop points at home, there are always boos,” continued Naismith. “That’s a frustration that comes and everyone feels the same. The players are frustrated, we are frustrated and so are the fans. The games that we have coming up are really good games and they are ones that everyone wants to play in.”

One crumb of comfort for Naismith was his captain Shankland ending his eight-match goalscoring drought. “Yeah, that’s a positive,” said Naismith. “I am positive about some of the play that we had in the final third, and the opportunities that we ended up creating when the players played with freedom and never worried about losing possession. That’s the key part in possession for us. There are a few positives but it is a disappointing day.”