Naismith candid on naivety as Jambos lose handily at Celtic
Hearts head coach Steven Naismith lamented some naivety from his players in the 3-0 defeat at Celtic Park, but insisted he would also take many positives from the performance. Celtic scored twice inside the opening 21 minutes through Kyogo Furuhashi, and added a late third goal through Matt O’Riley’s penalty to complete a comfortable victory, writes Barry Anderson.
Defensively, Hearts failed to keep track of Kyogo at the first two goals, but at times their play in opposition territory was brave and encouraging.
“We started off really well and it was two teams who were comfortable enough on the ball,” he said. “The difference probably was that we didn’t take our chances and they did.
"In games, goals change the dynamic. We concede the first, which was a poor, poor goal from us so quickly in the game as we’ve got the best defensive record from setplays. I then thought we got a hold of the ball and created some chances. You can come to Celtic Park and not create any chances, but we had some really good chances. They don’t go in, either through a good save or us not doing well enough.
“At the second goal, we’ve got 100 per cent possession and can’t give it up. We give the ball away too cheaply, we’ve not got a good structure, and it’s a simple goal for Celtic. When you’re going to do that it makes it an uphill challenge. But I thought there was a lot of good stuff from us.”
Hearts left the field frustrated at the 2-0 halftime deficit.
“Yeah. I think if we want to be better and progress and be a team that really wants success, you have to be able to come to these grounds and not sit in for 90 minutes and hope to get a goal. You need to have some form of attack and I thought we had that, especially in the first half.
“When you give good players half-chances, they’ll take them. We gave them good chances and they were obviously going to take them. There was some naivety about some of our decisions where you have to recognise what time in the game it is and where you are on the pitch. When you lose that ball, our structure wasn’t great and it allowed Celtic to have momentum.
“I thought Zander had some really good saves as well. So there’s that naivety, but it’s our first year together and to create the chances we did is the positive. But we need to learn that we can’t give up the ball when we have, as we would class it, 100 per cent possession. We have to be as expansive as we can but knowing that we can’t give the ball away. We did and we got punished.”
Hearts appealed strongly for offside after Kyogo headed the opener, but Naismith stated he did not think there was any infringement.
“I’ve seen it back on the iPad and I don’t think it was. The timing of the first goal was poor because if we’re 0-0 and we play the way we did, the atmosphere in the ground changes. But we give them the lift of an early goal. Celtic are probably the most experienced team in these situations in the league. They use it well, their big players are coming back and getting fitter every week. So when you give them assistance they’re going to punish you.”