Dark day for desperate Dan
EMBATTLED Hearts boss Daniel Stendel insists his pre-derby trip home to Germany — and the decision to grant players Christmas Day off — played no part in yesterday’s humbling by Hibernian at Tynecastle. But he admitted that his team, rooted to the bottom of the Scottish Premiership with just one round of fixtures to go before the winter break, is desperately crying out for a striker to turn chances into goals. Stendel missed the entire build-up to the Boxing Day clash, travelling home for personal reasons immediately
after the weekend loss to Hamilton and leaving promoted reserve-team coach Andy Kirk to take the side. The former Barnsley boss, who travelled back to Scotland on Christmas Day, also took the unusual step of cancelling the normal eve-of-match training session. Invited to explain more about his reason for his trip home just two weeks into the new job, Stendel said: ‘I cannot and would not explain — it was agreed long before I signed here. I want to help and I’m sure I can help this club and Ann (Budge, Hearts owner). ‘I know it’s a difficult situation.
But, when you see the game, it was not the reason we did not win.’ Asked about the decision not to train on Wednesday, Stendel said: ‘You think it’s the reason we didn’t win today? I think no. ‘In the end, when you win you can say anything and it’s all right, when you lose it’s all bad. ‘I take the responsibility for the decisions and I take the responsibility for the game but some things I cannot change. ‘I cannot play, I cannot score, I cannot defend. We tried to improve and I think you can see some players are improving and some players maybe not. ‘I hope we can change some things but, at the moment, we need to work hard and change
the result on Sunday (at home against Aberdeen). ‘If we play like today, I cannot believe that we do not win in the next games.’ Hearts were blown away by Hibs in a torrid first half, two Martin Boyle goals doing the damage before they could regroup with an improved performance after the break. But they’ve scored just one goal in Stendel’s four games at the helm — and that run continued here. Asked if the problem lay in a lack of quality up front, the former Hannover boss pointedly mentioned two strikers currently out injured — but not starting target man Uche Ikpeazu — as he said: ‘With
Steven Naismith and Conor Washington, we have two strikers who have proved in the past they can score goals. ‘But we don’t have those players. When you have two important strikers like those two, the players who play do their best — but at the moment it’s not good enough. ‘Maybe they need more luck and when we score they can become more confident. ‘The one and only thing we can do is try to do it better. ‘What we did in the second half is what I expected from my team in all the games. But we were 2-0 behind. ‘We conceded the goals alone. My feeling is they were own goals. We had some good chances but the feeling is: “Can we really score a goal?”. ‘The situation is not easy. I am here four games and we have not won a point. That is frustrating for me.’ Presiding over the worst start by any Hearts boss since 1938, Stendel confessed that the situation he inherited from Craig Levein was worse than anticipated. ‘Maybe yes,’ he said, adding: ‘I thought it would be easier to win games. ‘When I see the last four games, okay Celtic were good but in the other games we can win them. But every time is the same — if you don’t score a goal it can be you concede like today.’