Naismith explains keeper switch as star struggles for fitness
Steven Naismith has confirmed his thinking behind Craig Gordon’s return to league action as he made an early Scottish Cup team news admission after a 4-2 Premiership win over Livingston, writes Ben Banks.
All the action happened inside a chaotic first 45 minutes, as two errors at the back allowed Stephen Kelly to score twice for the Lions. It was the home side who came roaring back, in part thanks to inspired Lawrence Shankland and Barrie McKay contributions. Captain Shankland notched two assists in three minutes for Jorge Grant and Yutaro Oda before Cammy Devlin completed the comeback. A Shankland penalty before half-time brought an end to scoring as Hearts made sure of European football in some capacity for next term.
Now the goal will be to ensure it’s in third spot and in either the Europa League or Europa Conference League group stage, with Rangers in Scottish Cup semi-final action at Hampden next Sunday. Third spot becomes a guaranteed group stage spot next weekend if Aberdeen lose to Celtic, now the Dons’ bottom six spot is confirmed.
There was an emotional return between the sticks for Gordon, making his first start at Tynecastle and in the league since a serious leg break last season. Naismith confirmed it was with next Sunday’s semi-final at Hampden in mind, but also admitted midfielder Calem Nieuwenhof was unlikely to make the Rangers game.
He said when asked if the midfielder will be available for next weekend: “Probably not – he won’t have trained enough. He is not in the plans to train at the start of the week so I think he will be struggling to be involved. He’s (Gordon) been playing in the cup and I thought it was a good opportunity to get him a game before the semi-final. That was the decision.”
There were six changes to the team that beat St Mirren, but while some of that was to give stars a chance to shine before Hampden, it was also due to others not training fully this week. Naismith explained: “I think it was a mixture. A couple of the boys hadn’t trained all week, so their training time wasn’t up to the level that I thought it was worth starting them. And then with the way we thought the game was going to be, we thought we needed certain players. Barrie came in because he has got that quality and he showed that for the first goal by finding that pass. And we need to get players minutes that haven’t had them to get them up to speed. But ultimately it was because I thought the players out on the pitch could win us the game.”
Despite going two goals down, no panic set in against Livingston, who are nine points from safety with five games left in the Premiership. Naismith insists that is a sign of Hearts progress.
He added: "At no point did I think we need to his the panic button or change it. We didn’t even change what we were doing, we just had to get better. We knew with their aggressive press we would have a free player. We started finding that free player and exposed them.
“From the previous games, our reaction has been good in those moments, and I think that’s shown.”