Gary Mackay: Wins would be just the ticket to salvage Hearts' season

AFTER Saturday's abject defeat at Fir Park, our next two games, at home to Hibs and Rangers, have become even more important for the club – both on and off the park.

Needless to say, we could desperately do with a couple of wins to enhance our chance of a higher league position come the end of the season.

But, perhaps more importantly, the club needs to give some of our more disillusioned fans some hope for the future. It's getting to that stage where fans will be thinking about whether or not they'll be renewing their season tickets.

And, judging by the fact our away support appears to be dwindling by the week, I worry that there are a fair few fans continuing to lose faith in the way things are going. It looked like only a few hundred had made their way through to Motherwell and that is worrying because Hearts are a club renowned for having one of the biggest away supports in the country.

In my opinion, the enthusiasm has been knocked out of many of them by the structure at the club over the past few seasons overseen by our absent owner.

Those fans in doubt about whether or not to renew will need some assurances from the club that the management team are going to be responsible for the recruitment of players.

As fans, we want to see a club where everyone is pulling in the same direction with Jim Jefferies in charge of all footballing matters. We've seen too many situations over the past few years where players have been brought in who are simply not suited to the football club and it has held us back.

I read in the Evening News last week that Jim hopes to meet with Vladimir Romanov in May. My own feeling on that is that May will be too late unless one or two of the owner's people have been working closely with Jim in the meantime. You don't want to be chasing players in May, June and July if there was a chance you could have had them tied up in January. I've spoken before about people at the club needing more foresight, so I can only hope that things have been going on behind the scenes in terms of planning for next season. We can't afford to let another campaign go to waste.

If fans are putting their hard-earned cash towards buying a season ticket, I feel, considering the upheaval and uncertainty of the past few years, that the club have a duty to give out some information and reassurances about how they intend to go forward. Having said that, a couple of decent results on the park, particularly in the home games, will also be important to try and ensure that, going into the close season, there is a buoyancy and a sense of enthusiasm among supporters which has been sadly lacking so far this term.

Looking back on Saturday's game, I think it's fair to say Hearts were non-existent in the first half. The first two goals lost really were schoolboy stuff. There was a bit more spark in the second half but, overall, we were given a harsh lesson from a team playing with a lot of confidence. One mitigating factor which I don't think can be ignored, however, is the effect our alarming injury list is having on results. Since Craig Brown's taken over at Motherwell he's had a consistency of selection which is something that Jim Jefferies and Csaba Laszlo before him haven't had this season.

When we have injuries, it never seems to be just for a week or ten days, they all seem to be out for about five weeks. It's a real concern. The fitness of the players has to be looked at because consistency of selection is a big thing in football and right now we don't have that. Motherwell's front four of Lukas Jutkiewicz, Jamie Murphy, John Sutton and Jim O'Brien – who readers will know I'm a big fan of – have been a regular combination this season and it showed against us. Their movement, pace, potency and creativity reminded us what we've been missing in the final third for some time now. We simply weren't able to handle them.

I think Saturday highlighted that we should have pulled out all the stops to try and get O'Brien, who is out of contract in the summer, tied up before now. It should have been a priority as he would definitely give us the type of creative spark that we are currently lacking.

The defeat is certainly not ideal preparation for a derby but we've got to hope we'll get a few more bodies back to put some pressure on those who underperformed at the weekend. Guys like Stewart, Zaliukas, Driver, Black, Palazuelos, Thomson and Bouzid are all the type of players we could do with getting back before the split because there's a real danger that even if we do make it into the top six, we might be too far adrift to make a real impression in the battle for a European place.

With that in mind, we could desperately do with a result against our city rivals. I think it will be a very tight match and after producing our most lacklustre 45 minutes of the season on Saturday, it is imperative to make sure we are at least competitive. Anything less won't be acceptable.

Long may Villa boys prosper

I WAS at a sportsman's dinner on Saturday night for Longniddry Villa Boys Club, where I continued my education in after-dinner speaking.

Scott Glynn, Sandy Strang and John O'Neill were three brilliant speakers but it was wonderful to be surrounded by so many people who have a genuine enthusiasm for youth football in their local area. These people are the lifeblood of our game in the sense that they give up their time unpaid to develop youngsters. I hope Villa have a long and fruitful future as a boys club.