STENDEL’S SURVIVAL INSTINCTS KICKING IN
Hearts manager ‘learning on job’... but fight against drop now critical
THE gaffer still sounds confident in his team’s ability to beat the drop. Oh yes, to hear Daniel Stendel tell it, one day they will all laugh about how Hearts almost went down.
Within a squad of professional footballers who needed oodles of self-belief just to make the grade, meanwhile, there can be no defeatist talk.
The one problem? Such sunny optimism would not survive failure to beat Hamilton at Tynecastle this afternoon.
Coping with a goalkeeper crisis — Joel Pereira is still trusted, in case you were wondering — and scanning the casualty lists for walking wounded just fit enough to play, Stendel makes no attempt to downplay the importance of today’s Premiership clash.
Stuck on 18 points after 26 games, and with most coaches aiming for 36 as a total guaranteed to escape relegation, his team have officially gone from at risk to critical.
If you think they’re shoo-ins to win six of their remaining dozen league fixtures, well, there’s a Nigerian prince who would like to talk to you about a wonderful money-making opportunity. This is not, Stendel admits, exactly what he signed up for. And a relegation battle is a long way out of his comfort zone.
But, after fronting up at a fans’ meeting on Thursday night — less than 24 hours after leading his team to a hammering by Celtic in Glasgow — the head coach is not about to start complaining about his lot.
‘The expectations from myself are so different from the results of the last two months,’ said the German.
‘But I need to learn, also. The situation for me was a little bit new. It was really the first time that I had started in a situation like that.
‘Sometimes a new manager comes in — and just him coming in changes a lot of things. ‘Sometimes you a have a coach who is strong, the next coach comes in and there is a bit more freedom. It works immediately. ‘Or maybe it is the opposite — one coach is very soft and the next coach comes in. ‘This was not the problem here. The problem was not in the last six months. It was a little bit longer. ‘My feeling is that the task was so much more complicated than I expected. But this is my job. I think we all learn from the situation. ‘In the end, we achieve our goal and we stay in the league. And we can look back and say: “Okay, it was not easy but we learned from this and this and this — and we have that experience.” ‘I think it’s helpful for us, for me, for the team, for the club. This is my biggest goal, to say that after the season.’ Treating this campaign of woe as a teachable moment is certainly one way of looking at things. The more sceptical members of the Hearts support may point out that this is not a ‘learn-on-thejob’ environment.
Once again proving the essential politeness of most ordinary folk, Stendel received only warmth and positivity from his meeting at Tynecastle on Thursday night; there were no pitchforks and flaming torches to be seen.
‘I expected a bit of a different atmosphere,’ conceded the former Barnsley boss. ‘But it’s my job to deal with that — I have responsibility for the results.
‘I know the results haven’t been what we all expected.
‘There was no chance I’d be scared of the situation. This is the job I like, the game we all like. I take the responsibility for this situation, we work hard to change it.
‘I can only say to fans that the players are working so hard, together with the coaching staff. And I believe we’ve deserved to win games.
‘This is a really big game for us. Saturday will not decide what happens at the end of the season — but it’s a big chance to make the right step for the rest of the season.
‘It’s the best situation that you have a game against your direct rival. With a win, we can jump over Hamilton and that can give the right step for the next weeks.
‘Everybody who comes to the game can expect from us that we take the fight to Hamilton. If we
The task was much more complicated than I had expected
can do this then, in the end, I think we’re the better team.
‘Not one game decides our situation and I would expect to fight until the last games. We have the chance to achieve our goals alone and not have help from other teams.’
To say that Hearts have not been helping themselves lately is something of an understatement.
Never more so in the case of Pereira, the on-loan Manchester United goalkeeper looking far from convincing of late.
Stendel, without denying that the loan arrangement included an increasingly common financial penalty for not playing the Portuguese goalie, insisted that it plays no part in his decision making process.
‘I understand your questions but it’s not one idea in my head to decide things like that for the first XI,’ he stressed.
‘There are a lot questions about the goalkeeper and, in the end, I think we all can play better. But, in the end, we need the best team on the pitch for Saturday.’
Asked if Pereira’s ‘sweeperkeeper’ profile would always give him the edge over the more traditional skills of Bobby Zlamal, Stendel said: ‘I like when we have a goalkeeper who can play from the back and has confidence when he has a backpass.
‘But every manager likes a keeper who can save the ball as well — and I am no different.’
Aaron Hickey is back in training, while Michael Smith (groin) and Sean Clare (hamstring) are doubts.
Yet Stendel insisted: ‘Tomorrow is so important, anyone who can play will play.’
Hearts fans will appreciate that sentiment. But they’re also smart enough to recognise a team caught in a downward spiral.
Their only consolation at the moment is that, compared to the circumstances that contributed to relegation in season 2013-14, the current situation is hardly a crisis. Winger Jamie Walker, who played in that administration-hit campaign, said: ‘We’ve got better players.
‘We’ve got higher quality players who have played at a better level than most of the players that we had before.
‘Most of them were young kids and we had the 15-point deduction.
‘No one expected us to be in this situation. We can’t mope around, we need to get on with it.
‘The next two games are the biggest games I’ve been involved in since I’ve been at this club. We need to win and that’s the situation we’re in.’
St Mirren away on Friday night will be a game of enormous import regardless of what happens today.
First things first, though. No matter how you carve up the statistical predictions, a home game with Hamilton simply must yield a victory.
Or else all the confidence in the world won’t help.