European night enough to boost players: Neilson
Defiant Robbie Neilson insists it won’t take much to lift his offform Hearts troops for Thursday night’s Europa Conference League Campaign opener.
Neilson’s Hearts have now lost five of their six last games in all competitions as they gear up to kick off their Europa Conference League campaign against Istanbul Basaksehir at a sold-out Tynecastle.
But the Jambos’ gaffer has assured the brassedoff Tynecastle faithful his players will be ready for their latest European adventure.
Neilson said: “No, it won’t be hard to lift them.
“There will be 20,000 fans there and it’s European football.
“The most important thing for us is getting energy back in the group.
We have five days to prepare now. Over the last week or two it’s been relentless, now we have a wee bit of a break before the next match.
“I don’t think it’s so much of a confidence thing. I think it’s more the fact that when you come here it’s a difficult place to play.
“If you play Livingston’s style of football they will beat you because they are better at it than you – and we got caught up in their game.”
Neilson felt his side didn’t do enough to arrest their recent decline against fired-up Livvy but stressed they had chances early on which could have made for a different outcome in the end.
He added: “It was a bit of both. When you are on top, you have to get the goal.
“We got two or three opportunities and didn’t take them. Then you let them start to dictate the way the game is.
“It becomes second balls, aggression and pressing people.
“Livi are very good at it and that’s why you need to get it out of these pressure areas. We didn’t and got caught up in the game.
“When you lose a goal after 20 minutes, Livingston can sit deep and tight. They get their back four and drop three midfielders and two wide players in. So you have 10 people to try and break through.
“That was a big frustration. We spoke at half-time about trying to get back playing like we did early doors.
“The boy up front (Nouble) does brilliant holding the ball up. Similar to Wednesday night against Kilmarnock in the cup, we didn’t have that spark because of fatigue in the team.
“We need to get that energy back for the final moment.”