Daly in dark over head coach role

JON DALY hopes yesterday’s defeat to Motherwell has not derailed his hopes of becoming Hearts’ head coach.

The Jam Tarts caretaker saw his side take the lead at Fir Park through Kyle Lafferty, only to cough up two goals before the break.

Well closed out the second half to claim their second win on the spin.

And with a decision expected early this week on who will take Hearts forward following the sacking of Ian Cathro, Daly remains in the dark.

Asked if the result had damaged his chances, the Jambos caretaker said: “I don’t know. It’s never nice to get beat and we’re disappointed, but in terms of the job, I don’t know what the club are thinking.

“You saw again the effort and we passed the ball a lot better today.

“The final third is what wins you games, the decision-making, and today we didn’t deal with their decisions in the final third and we didn’t make the right ones for ourselves.”

“You can’t fault the players’ work rate, but that’s not enough to win you games of football. You need to have that quality.

“We’ve got more than enough of it in the team, and we’ve got more quality to come on from the bench as well, it’s just on the day our decision making let us down.

“The club have made the statement that they’re going to make a decision this week.

“Whether that’s myself or someone coming in, it gives a bit more clarity to the role and situation.”

Daly gave Motherwell credit for their slick performance at Fir Park.

But the Irishman lamented his side’s inability to put their match preparations into practice.

“The first goal is definitely important in most games,” he said.

“It’s a great finish from big Laff, but from our point of view, we haven’t dealt with what we expected today.

“We expected Motherwell to go direct, play long balls, get the ball wide and put it in our box. They’ve done that and scored two goals.

“We’ve prepared for that but unfortunately we’ve not dealt with it on the day.”

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