Lawrence Shankland blow for Hearts – plus Beni Baningime and Frankie Kent’s chances of facing FC Copenhagen
Hearts defeated Dundee 2-0, and Lawrence Shankland celebrated the end of his goal drought by scoring twice. However, the captain was suspended for the game. He received his sixth yellow card of the season in the 61st minute, which, in accordance with Scottish Football Association disciplinary regulations, results in an automatic one-match suspension.
Shankland will not be able to go to Rugby Park to play Kilmarnock in the Premiership on Sunday because of this. After netting two goals in the first half to snap a 12-game goalless streak, he was cautioned for a strong challenge on Dundee’s Mo Sylla. Hearts moved off the bottom of the Premiership table thanks to his effort, which led them to three crucial points.
Neil Critchley, the head coach of Hearts, stated, “Yeah, it’s nice to score a few goals, particularly Shanks getting both of them goals and keeping a clean sheet.” “I believe that was Craig Gordon’s 100th clean sheet, so we’ve had a successful day. We deserved to win the game, in my opinion. To be honest, I would have preferred it if we had played a little better with the ball in the second half. However, I felt that we won the game because we played a great first half.
Critchley hopes Shankland can now regain the goal-scoring ability he showed in the previous two seasons. “Yes, I fervently hope so. Other than the previous few games, he has been delivering pretty similar results to what he has been producing, especially last season, according to some of his statistics and the data supporting his performances. That will, in effect, give him a great deal of confidence and, if you will, relieve some of his burdens. I hope you can see how relieved he, the players, and the fans are.
“You see his shots, his expected goals that he’s supposed to get, the touches that he gets inside the penalty area. Everything’s very similar [in data analysis]. It’s just the final little bit. Today, the final little bit’s gone for him, which is why he scored two goals. He’s had similar chances in other games and they’ve just not gone in. But that’s the difference today and that’s strikers.
“I think it just made him relax and feel free. Getting the first goal is important. We’ve shown we can come behind last week against Aberdeen, but we haven’t scored the first goal in too many games and I think that makes a huge difference. I think it just frees the team up a little bit. If anything, we could have probably got one or two more today, in truth.”
Midfielder Beni Baningime missed the match through a knee injury, whilst defender Frankie Kent was left out due to a quad muscle complaint. Critchley hinted that Kent could make Thursday’s UEFA Conference League tie away to FC Copenhagen.
“Frankie was more precautionary so I would hope that he would be available,” said Critchley. “Baningime has had a bit of an issue with his knee, which has been on and off for a while, so we just have to check him on Monday to see how that’s going to be.”
Critchley handed 17-year-old James Wilson his first senior start in attack and watched him play an important role in the build-up to Hearts’ first goal. The energy brought by the teenager and Musa Drammeh influenced what was a strong display. “Yeah, they did well. Musa brings a physical threat and he’s a goal threat. And James, that’s his first start so I was made up for him,” said the Englishman.
The players will discover that my focus is on performance. I won’t be upset if we perform well and I can tell that we’ve been there—that our character, mentality, and intensity have been there—and that we’ve used the ball effectively. If we lose, I’ll be sad, but if we win and I believe we can play better, they’ll know. Performance is more important than outcomes because if you perform well on a regular basis, the results will come. I thought we could have used the ball much more effectively in the second half.
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