AUSTIN POWERS
»»Tomorrow will tell me a lot about myself and how comfortable I am in sole charge of the team »»Some of these players haven’t been able to cope with the pressures of playing for club this size
AUSTIN MACPHEE admits his managerial moment of reckoning is nigh – and that judgment day will come tomorrow in a League Cup semi-final against Rangers.
The Hearts assistant boss has been thrust front and centre for the Hampden clash after being involved in a horror run of results which made Craig Levein surplus to requirements.
But the 40-year-old knows it’s sink or swim time as to whether he’s boss material after being asked by Jambos owner Ann Budge to take interim charge for the club’s biggest game of the season.
MacPhee was at pains to stress his own immediate future shouldn’t be a priority but one feared he protested too much as he laid out a host of reasons why he can step into the hotseat.
But he’s happy to get a taster tomorrow to see if it’s to his liking.
He said: “Sunday will show me where I am. For better or worse, Sunday will tell me a lot about me.
“I need to stand at the side of the pitch with nobody bar me responsible for that team, that 90 minutes and those decisions.
“I feel comfortable about that just now. Let’s see if I feel comfortable about it at 5pm or 5.30pm on Sunday. The next 10 days will tell a lot of people about how competent I am.”
Levein was at the club’s training base yesterday to say his goodbyes to the first team as he prepares to wind down his duties as director of football and MacPhee revealed the ex-Scotland boss offered his blessing to replace him in the dugout.
But the man who’s no longer second in command knows there will still be conspiracy theories over who is actually picking the team for Sunday’s showdown.
He said: “I’ve had a very frank relationship with Craig these last two years and we had some dialogue yesterday.
“Craig’s attitude made it very easy for me. He was hugely supportive towards me and I felt like I was speaking to a Hearts supporter.
“He explained that he wouldn’t be coming to the game, because people would write that he was picking the team, and that he wouldn’t be coming to training, because people would write that he was in charge of training.
“If Craig came to my house they’d say that he was cooking the tea.
“It is one of the easiest conversations I have had.
“I feel motivated by what he said to me to try to give Hearts the best possible chance of success on
Sunday. Craig has probably got to that point because of the experience he has had.
“The experience with Scotland and the experience of Leicester. So he has had to deal with that before.”
Whether having MacPhee calling the shots will signal a drastic change in fortune for a side which has been in freefall for almost an entire calendar year we’ll have to wait and see. But he’s adamant he has an idea over why they’ve been so abysmal.
He said: “Things have changed quite a lot on a weekly basis. Some of that is through injury of course but in the early parts of the season, being candid, we didn’t even get going in this competition.
“That was a struggle. We didn’t get to the point that the team had confidence with the ball.
“The nature of having Uche Ikpeazu in the team at times makes it an easy get-out. When you do that, there’s never a rhythm.
“Everything seemed a struggle, whether it’s Craig Halkett helping us out against Stenhousemuir with two late goals, there was never a point where we got a couple of goals ahead and enjoyed playing. There
JAMBOS INTERIM BOSS ON HIS JUDGMENT DAY
are many factors. One of them is the players didn’t want the ball at some points and some of them will be first to say that. That came out of conversations that I’ve had.
“But you can’t go to Hampden, which is 30 per cent bigger than Tynecastle, and hide from the ball.
“Everybody wants an excuse in life when things aren’t going well. That’s human nature.
“If people were critical of Craig and feeling the pressure of that, you have to be able to cope with that pressure to be a Hearts player.
“Some haven’t, let’s be honest and that has led to us being in the situation that we’re in.” It’s a damning statement to make of a group of players taking a wage at a club of Hearts’ stature.
But he insists a result against Rangers which mirrors the one when he last stepped into the breach would be most welcome at Hampden.
He said: “The only time I’ve been interim manager I was consulting the manager, who was in hospital, and I was delivering his ideas to the players. But now I have total accountability and responsibility. I’ve got my own ideas now, about who we have available, and what is the best way to go about this. “I got clarity on that quite quickly, once I got the call from Ann Budge. That was the most important thing for me, to be clear. Only if I am clear can I then deliver to the players and make them feel confident. “I’ve got one training session and 48 hours, hopefully the team will be prepared for what I want them to do.”
NO HELPING HAND Levein won’t be at semi