Marian Kello: I'll stay as long as Jefferies is my No.1 fan

The Slovakian has been approached by the club's sport director, Alexandr Metlitski, about renewing the year-long agreement he penned last summer, and has given a favourable response in principal.

Earlier this week, Jefferies declared Kello his first-choice goalkeeper ahead of Janos Balogh and Jamie MacDonald and the 27-year-old is thriving with the backing of his new manager following a frustrating spell out of the team under Csaba Laszlo.

"It was my target when I came here to be number one. Now it looks like I am number one and I'm happy with that," he said. "I don't want to disappoint Jim and give him a chance to change me. We'll see what's going to happen in the next months. The sport director asked me if I want to stay. I'm just waiting for the offer from him and we'll see.

"It's a very good feeling if you feel the manager is confident in you, and I'm happy with that. Hopefully I'll not disappoint him and I'll keep up the good performances and keep my jersey."

Kello added that he felt unfairly treated at times under Laszlo when Balogh became the Hungarian's preferred choice in goal. "I had a tough time, because a couple of times I feel I don't play bad and I was on the bench. The situation for Csaba was always that he brought Janos here and he was his number one. So it was obviously frustrating for me.

"If I play good (under Jefferies] I will play. If he (Balogh] plays better, he will play. This is a clear decision for the gaffer." Hearts were due to meet Falkirk at Tynecastle this afternoon attempting to arrest a sequence of four straight defeats without a goal. Consequently, dressing-room morale has suffered and Kello opined that the only way to improve camaraderie was by winning matches.

"We lost four games in a row. We didn't score. We didn't even shoot on target," he said. "But we must give time to Jim Jefferies to do his work and I think it's a positive for us. We must stop making mistakes and we must play as a team more. To be together and to fight for each other is very important. We must believe. We must go from the bottom to the top. Step by step we must be better.

"You can change the atmosphere with points, with victories. The atmosphere wasn't very good, and it's still not very good, because we don't have results. But I think everyone in the dressing room takes Jim Jefferies as a positive change. That's important for us."

Kello delivered perhaps his most accomplished goalkeeping display for Hearts at Celtic Park on Wednesday night and single-handedly denied on-loan Robbie Keane a debut goal with a series of impressive saves. That was not enough to satisfy the Slovakian, though.

"We lost 2-0 and don't have points. We wanted to make some good performances but the second half was horrible. Enjoyable – I cannot say that."

Following one second-half stop, Keane betrayed his frustration at not scoring in jocular fashion.

"He just said he wanted to score so much and it didn't happen. He said something to me, I don't know exactly. 'Stop catching these balls' or something like that.

"I don't think it was my best performance. It's always difficult to say which game is the best. For my best I'm just waiting."