Dan: Do not lose Heart
nightmare start to his Tynecastle reign yesterday.
The German, who replaced Craig Levein this week, lost his first game in charge to St Johnstone as his players were booed off at full-time.
Stendel admits he faces a huge job to turn their fortunes around as they stayed joint bottom of the Premiership table.
His next game is against champions Celtic in Gorgie on Wednesday night.
And Stendel has asked the Hearts punters to stick with his under-performing players before venting their frustration.
After the 1- 0 defeat to Saints, he said: “We all expected more today.
“I can see the players want to play better but they’ve lost that feeling and it’s very difficult to change it in just one day. I learned a lot and there’s a lot of work to be done here.
“We need to be more confident in everything we do. Every player was looking to play safe.
“But that’s not what we want here and I know they can play better.
“When some players come back from injury, we’ll have more quality.
“We need the support from the stands but we need more patience and understanding.”
The defeat leaves Hearts second bottom but Ann Budge has challenged Stendel to get his men into the Premiership’s top four THIS season.
The Tynecastle owner accepts the German faces a monumental task but wants a minimum top-half finish come next May.
She said: “This might sound unrealistic given where we’re sitting in the league at the moment.
“But there’s still a long way to go. Our number one priority is to make sure we’re in the top six. But our objective is to try and finish in the top four.”