Hearts FC suffered a 3-1 loss to Motherwell at Fir Park, leaving them winless in five competitive games this season. Steven Naismith criticized his team’s defense, stating that soft goals are causing them problems.
The Jambos now sit third bottom of the table, with only one point ahead of a Europa League play-off against Viktoria Plzen at Tynecastle on Thursday night.
He stated, “Every goal we’ve conceded this season has been extremely terrible. This puts you on the back foot in any game. In the last third, our final pass and decision-making were terrible, and when we did have shots, we failed to capitalize on them. In both boxes, we are not performing at the required level. It’s just the aims. They have a big impact on games, and this is what is killing us again.
“The goals we concede are the result of individual errors. If you look at some of the performances, we started well against Falkirk and had four good chances, we played really well against Plzen the other night, and even today, I thought we got into good positions where we needed to score or make the goalkeeper save, but we didn’t.”
Motherwell’s opening two goals came from set pieces, and Naismith admitted: “It’s bad. There is nothing further to say. Even the third goal is terrible. Every goal we’ve conceded has helped the other team.
“There is not one goal. I looked and said, ‘Wow, that’s a tremendous play. Our decision-making, defensive quality, and timing of when we drop have all been quite poor, and it’s costing us a lot of money right now.
“You must accept responsibility for your conduct and the duties assigned to you in specific roles. On the other hand, we need to improve our ability to take risks.
“Today, the quality of our final ball is severely missing. If we do well and score goals, you will gain a foothold in the game.
“We have to fix it. It cannot continue the way it is. We work really hard as it is. We went over it. When the players are on the pitch in the heat of battle, with adrenaline coursing through their veins, it is these split seconds that determine how excellent a player you are.
“That’s inevitably how it works. It’s not like we don’t work on these things. You have to take responsibility and real with the situations.”
Despite the poor start Naismith doesn’t expect much movement in the final few days of the transfer window. He said: “We’ll continue to look about to see what options are there but I feel we have recruited well.
“The results have not reflected that but when new players come to the club they very rarely come to the club and have a full expectation of what the demand is and what is expected.”
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