Players wear their Hearts on sleeves for boss Daly

Jon Daly insists his Hearts players couldn’t have given him any more effort to state his case for the full time Tynecastle gig.

The caretaker knows yesterday’s defeat in Motherwell could undermine his hopes of being handed the job ahead of more experienced candidates Steven Pressley and Paul Hartley.

The Irishman will know his fate soon enough with the board set to announce their final decision this week but after seeing his Jambos go from leading to losing at Fir Park, he insists he couldn’t have asked for any more commitment than they have showed him during his four games in charge.

Daly said: “I don’t know (if the defeat is damaging).

“It’s never nice to get beat and we’re disappointed but in terms of the job I don’t know what the club are thinking.

“You saw again the effort and we passed the ball a lot better today.

“The final third is what wins you games - the decision-making, and today we didn’t deal with their decisions in the final third and we didn’t make the right ones ourselves. “You can’t fault their work-rate, but that’s not enough to win you games of football. You need to have that quality. “We’ve got more than enough of it in the team, and we’ve got more quality to come on from the bench as well - our decision making let us down. “You have to give Motherwell credit. They’re very good at what they do and they know what they’re about. “They go long to Moult and long to Bowman and they play from there. “We prepared for that but we’ve not dealt with it on the day. “Now the club have made the statement that they’re going to make a decision this week. “Whether that’s myself or someone coming in, it gives a bit more clarity.”