Mackay-Steven ready and raring for Raith round two
Hearts winger out to right Saturday’s wrongs
STARK’S PARK probably isn’t many people’s idea of glamour but Gary Mackay-Steven is ready to get his hands dirty to help the team.
The new Hearts winger hasn’t played in the lower leagues since he was on the books with Airdrie a decade ago.
A fairly successful career since then has taken in stops at Dundee United, Celtic, Aberdeen and New York City before Robbie Neilson brought the 30 year-old back to Scotland at the start of the month.
His debut was a battling win away to Alloa Athletic while his first home appearance on Saturday resulted in a shock 3-2 defeat to Raith Rovers.
Those teams meet again this evening and Mackay-Steven is in no doubt that it will be another demanding encounter.
“There’s no quarter given at this level and I knew there wouldn’t be,” he said. “There are good teams.
“You have to work for everything and if you’re not on it and take all your chances, teams will punish you.
“You need to be switched on all the time, take your chances and not start games slowly like we did on Saturday.
“Raith scored some good goals and their keeper had an amazing game. They missed a penalty too. We hold our hands up, Raith deserved it. We weren’t at our level but we regroup and go again tonight.”
Saturday’s match was Mackay-Steven’s first 90 minutes since arriving at Tynecastle from his 18-month stint in MLS.
The former Scotland cap is still working his way back to full fitness but believes he has alighted at the right club for him at this stage in his career.
“I haven’t trained all that much to be honest with different things. But I got 45 minutes last week and 90 on Saturday.
“That’s my first for a few months and that’s only going to do me good going forward for fitness. I didn’t think I’d have 90 in me! But it’s good to get your match fitness from playing games. I’m not too far away, for sure.
“I’m delighted to be here and getting to know the boys the more I get to play with them. It’s been a brilliant, positive couple of weeks and I’m delighted to be back.
“Having spoken to the gaffer before I signed, it was just a big, fresh challenge that excited me. Looking at the squad, I saw myself in this team and kicking on again.
I’m delighted with my decision and I’m happy it’s at Hearts.”
Mackay-Steven revealed Robbie Neilson wants him to provide an additional creative element to Hearts’ game.
Mackay-Steven added: “The manager has said he wants me to give him attacking play, getting at the full-back all the time and creating chances. And chipping in with goals as well.
“We play on the front foot here and he wants us to attack as a team. He basically just wants me to be creative.
“There are a lot of goals in the team. We had chances on Saturday but their goalkeeper was on fire. Two or three I thought were certain goals but he’s got fingertips to it so fair play to him. We’re confident we have a lot of firepower in our team and we’ll do alright.”
Saturday’s loss saw Hearts’ lead at the top of the Championship cut to six points and Mackay-Steven wants to see them make amends this evening.
“We can’t dwell on Saturday. We recovered on Sunday and looked at what we could do better. It’s the same opponent tonight which is good from our point of view, so we can right that wrong.”
Neilson admits tonight’s game probably comes too soon for Christophe Berra who limped off just before half-time on Saturday.
“Christophe’s alright, he just had a tight hamstring,” said the manager. “We just felt that with Mihai Poepscu there we’d get him off. I’m not sure if he’ll make it tonight but hopefully he’ll be fine for the following week.”
The Hearts boss is also keen to add to his squad before the end of the window.
He added: “We’re still working on a few. It’s difficult in this window getting them in but we need that freshness.”