Hearts coach Cathro insists he will stay true to himself

IAN CATHRO is adamant he will not allow results to change the way he manages Hearts, insisting he has to be true to himself.

The Tynecastle head coach claims any other approach would be fake and risk failure. Cathro has come in for heavy criticism in recent days, with last Wednesday’s Scottish Cup exit to bitter rivals Hibernian followed by Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to Partick Thistle.

It leaves the Gorgie men without a victory in their last four games and with just four wins in Cathro’s 14 games in charge. There is concern among fans that the 30-year-old, who is in his first job as a head coach after assistant roles at Rio Ave, Valencia and Newcastle, is not cut out to be Hearts’ manager.

However, the Dundonian remains confident in his own ability to ease his new-look side through a sticky spell and insists he will do so without changing his approach. Otherwise, he believes, his squad would have every reason not to have faith in him.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow night’s home game against Ross County, he said: “My take is that there is only one person in the world that you can be – which is you. If you move from one position to another, with different demands and different dynamics, different responsibilities, the only way you can do that, and the only way you can lead people, is by those people believing that everything you do is real and is natural.

“But if, in order to go from one position to another, you need to change yourself, you are going to fall down.”

Cathro is aware concerns have been raised over his recruitment of nine nonScottish players in January, but insists it had not been mentioned when the side began February with comprehensive wins over Rangers and Motherwell.

He is confident the line of questioning will disappear when Hearts begin to play to their full potential. With the club’s new pitch to make its debut against County, he added: “The result controls the narrative. If we reflect on both [the Hibs and Partick] games, we’ve had a bad one, we’ve let people down. We know that.

“Ultimately, we’ve not done enough inside ourselves to show the strength in our own minds to keep making the right decisions for the game to be positive for us. If that happens, we play better, we do things better, we get a positive result, then nobody thinks that.

“If we don’t, we allow people to think that, write that, feel that. It’s our responsibility.”