Alarm bells should be ringing loudly at Tynecastle
FOR a man painted by his detractors as a mousy coaching nerd welded to his laptop, Ian Cathro’s grand plan for fixing the bugs in the system at Tynecastle sounds neanderthal.
Show a bit more fight? Really? Is that where we are at already?
Talk of battling and playing for the jersey may appease some, but it really ought to heighten concerns that this reboot of the football department at Tynecastle is ready to crash and burn. Yesterday’s latest horror story at Firhill showed how hollow those words were and are.
When you hear a coach reduced to talking about getting fight into his team — and little else — it does start the alarm bells ringing.
Particularly when his reign has hardly even started and he brought in most of the players.
One thing is clear. You cannot put fight into people. You can make them fitter, drill home the jobs you want done, employ more aggressive team tactics.
You cannot, however, turn George from Rainbow into George Foreman. The defence has been shipping silly goals of late, so why not admit that trying to introduce nine new players to the squad at the same time leads to dysfunction?
Cathro became snippy last week, though, when asked if leaving Carl Tremarco unmarked to score in Inverness’ 1-1 draw in Gorgie was maybe down to new players still settling into their roles.
‘Nothing to do with that. OK?’ came the abrupt reply.
Maybe he can talk about why Jason Cummings was allowed to make an untracked run for the opener in the cup humiliation at Hibs and Grant Holt was left alone to prod in the second goal.
Of course, putting Malaury Martin, hooked at half-time, back in midfield also brought vicious criticism.
Martin is now on his seventh club at the age of 28. He was given a three-and-ahalf-year contract along with Esmael Goncalves. Neither have convinced.
This is where Craig Levein comes in. As Rangers prepare to bring in a director of football, advocates of that role believe it leads to greater continuity.
Where, then, is the continuity at Hearts? Of the 14 players used in beating Rangers on the first day of their march to the Championship in season 2014-15, only Sam Nicholson and Prince Buaben remain.
Of the nine signed in January, seven are on six-month deals.
Levein has had to defend a ‘risky’ transfer strategy at the club AGM. His reputation — and surely his job — is on the line, too.