Hearts: Never mind the niceties ... give me a rollicking

Chatterbox Kyle is never slow to let his colleagues know how he feels about the way a game is going or how their own individual performance has been and he wants more players to follow his example.

He reckons that communication and letting your feelings be known - both on and off the pitch - can help the team reach their targets in the league and cup this season.

Kyle reckons more voices on the field can help Hearts become a successful unit and said: "It is a young side but it's a good young side. I'd love nothing more than Craig Thomson to turn round and give me an absolute rollicking, it'd be brilliant. I'd accept it and say 'that's a bit more like you, Thommo' because it brings more out in you as a player.

"In training we're screaming and shouting and kicking each other but on a Saturday we're very quiet.

"Darren (Barr) and (Ismael) Bouzid talk at the back but we can't hear them. If everyone was more vocal it would help."

The striker knows how it feels to be on the end of a tongue-lashing, having been reduced to tears by a former manager.

While Kyle admitted that being shot down in front of his team-mates put him on a downer for a couple of hours, he insisted that it also made him more determined to prove his boss, former Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia, wrong.

"My old youth-team manager Ricky Sbragia gave me a rollicking and I was ready to go back to the hostel, pack my bags and head home," he continued.

"I was in tears. He gave me everything, 'You think you're this and that and I'll tell you, you're nothing!'

"But he was right and it made me want to come in the next day and work on things and not let him do that to me again.

"It was a kick up the backside and I finished the season with 35 goals, so it must have worked."

The Hearts players sat down earlier this week as a group to discuss the reason why they are not vocal enough and Kyle could be the perfect man to bring his team-mates out of their shells.

However he acknowledged there is a fine line between constructive criticism and picking on someone, and revealed that he asked team-mate Ruben Palazuelos to convey just that to Suso after an outburst at Inverness recently: "I've been in teams before when if someone shouted at me I felt like curling up and crying.

"I don't want to make people feel like that but it can have the desired affect.

"I've always been loud and I remember at Rugby Park if Billy Thompson hadn't got between Billy Brown and myself we'd have been punching the hell out of each other. But we were trying to do whatever it took to win and that's what it should be here at Hearts. We need to communicate a bit more and get each other up for the game.

"I don't know if I can bring it out in other players because sometimes you shout at players and they look at you as if to say, 'who are you talking to'.

"Whether player like or dislike it from me, I will continue to do it as it's the way I am. If I've overstepped the mark then I'm sure someone will tell me and I'll put my hand up and apologise.

"It's something we need to do more because we are quiet, we're a bit tentative and we need to help each other more.

"There's constructive criticism and then there's picking on someone, there is a time when you can cross the line.

"Some people take it the wrong way and some the right way. When we played Inverness I shouted at Suso for not picking up his man at a throw-in and they got a shout at goal. He started shouted back in Spanish but afterwards I told him I wasn't having a go at him but was shouting to keep him on his toes.

"It's not me being harsh or unfair but if you switch off we could lose a goal."

"I'd love nothing more than Craig Thomson to turn round and give me an absolute rollicking" kevin kyle

Hearts: Never mind the niceties ... give me a rollicking - Kevin Kyle