ALL-STAR CAST VYING FOR LEAD ROLE IN GORGIE
WHEN Robbie Neilson took charge of Hearts in 2014, his first issue was to address a lack of leadership. Appointed at the exceptionally young age of 33, Neilson looked around the Tynecastle dressing room and saw few hardened faces ready to help drag the team to promotion on the back of a relegation campaign.
His choice of captain was not obvious, so he turned to Danny Wilson, newly recruited from Liverpool yet just 22 and with less than 50 senior games under his belt.
Second time around, Neilson already finds himself spoiled for choice.
Steven Naismith, Christophe Berra, Craig Gordon, Craig Halkett, Michael Smith, Peter Haring, Liam Boyce and John Souttar all have the blend of authority and experience which the returning manager knows will be needed to keep the team’s Championship bid on track this coming season.
He said: ‘It’s something we will discuss, but at this moment in time Steven Naismith will continue as captain. We have a strong leadership group with Christophe Berra, Craig Gordon, Craig Halkett and John Souttar. We also have Liam Boyce and Peter Haring, so there are a lot of big characters in there.
‘You need that at a club of this size. I have spoken to them all individually and they are all positive about coming back and their role within the club.’
Listing those names, two obvious questions arise. First, even accounting for wage cuts, can the club really afford to run with such a deep squad in the second tier?
And with so many international standard players on the books, how did it ever come to a point where Hearts could even flirt with relegation in the first place?
Naismith was handed the armband in fraught circumstances. The sacking of Craig Levein mid-season was the opposite of a knee-jerk decision from club chair Ann Budge, who had patiently waited for an improvement in the team’s form for over a year.
His eventual dismissal led to the protracted pursuit of Daniel Stendel and by the time the German arrived, the team was entering a packed December schedule with morale at rock bottom on and off the park.
After just a few games in charge, Stendel decided the club’s horrendous league form would be better addressed without club captain Berra, who was removed from the team and sent out on loan to Dundee. Naismith, 33, has struggled with injuries since moving to Hearts from Norwich and, even in a curtailed league campaign of 27 fixtures, may not be available for every game.
Yet Neilson sees a determination from the forward, not only to restore Hearts to the top flight after what everyone at the club regards as an unjust demotion, but also to cement his place as a Scotland regular ahead of a possible tilt at the delayed Euro 2020 finals next summer.
‘I have spoken to Steven a few times,’ said Neilson. ‘I know him as a player, not personally, but having spoken to him he is very motivated.
‘He is a top, top player. I think we have the core of a really good team. We just need to add two or three players to give ourselves a different dimension.
‘I don’t think playing in the Championship will stop Steven being involved with Scotland, he has been phenomenal for a number of years. There are others, too. I would expect Craig Gordon to be around the national team.
‘We have Michael Smith and Liam Boyce with Northern Ireland. John Souttar is also there and I would like Halkett to be around about it too. Aaron Hickey is there.
‘Whether we are playing Championship or Premiership, these guys will be round about the international scene.’
Gordon’s motivation in that regard is especially intense. It was as a young Hearts player that the goalkeeper debuted for the national team and, now back at Tynecastle under freedom of contract at 37, Neilson sees a former team-mate who will not only add much-needed composure to the defence but will prove a shining example to the club’s young players.
He explained: ‘Craig brings massive experience, it’s great to have someone who knows the club so well. He’s been here as a fan, a player and got his move.
‘I’ve spoken to some of the young ones about that. Craig came here as a young player, played his 100-150 games before his getting his big move. I think a lot of young players nowadays want to move quickly. We are hoping his experience and going on to have such a great career can encourage the younger players to try and emulate that.’
Neilson insists that, even in the second tier, Hearts can offer something special to prospective new signings. He added: ‘People might look and think “Championship?” but then there’s the size of the club and the quality of the training facilities and stadium. The most important thing is the fan base. With all that, it doesn’t take a lot to convince players to come once we get them here and show them around.
‘We’ll need to recruit in certain areas but I know the Championship well. We won it last season at Dundee United and I’ve won it at Hearts. You can be on Astro, you can be at Arbroath but it’s about finding a way to win games and bringing that belief to the players that they can do it.’
For the foreseeable future, Hearts’ fans anger will be focused on the SPFL and those rival clubs who voted to approve the early ending of the Premiership season and/or object to the reconstruction plan that would have kept them in the top tier.
‘If you asked any football fan if their club was put in the same position there would be a grievance,’ says Neilson. ‘We have to use that as a positive, to come together.
‘We had that sense of togetherness last time I was here. We have that again and it’s about building on it.’ David Weir, another ex-Hearts man and one-time Scotland teammate of Neilson, could potentially arrive as director of football at Tynecastle and Neilson is relaxed at that prospect. ‘The most important thing for me is the relationship between the manager and sporting director,’ he added. ‘We will wait and see but it’s a role I see as being very important.
‘In my opinion, this football club is too big for the manager to be making all the decisions from the academy through to what bus we’re getting to travel to away games.
‘My job is too help the players win on a Saturday. If everything that doesn’t have a real influence on that is taken out of my hands, it will help me focus on my main objective.’ By Graeme Croser