Blair Spittal discusses Neil Critchley’s first days in the Hearts hot seat and what he has been emphasising to his new club.
The Tynecastle manager got off to a flying start with four goals against St Mirren, his first league win of the season.
Carlsberg could celebrate Saturdays with a sunny afternoon and four goals from new Hearts manager Neil Critchley.
A Tynecastle statement that Hibs had supplanted them at the bottom of the Premiership would likely be overkill.
After securing their first league win of the season against St Mirren, the Jambos fans were overjoyed with the result on Tayside.
Even Critchley confessed he couldn’t have stage-managed a finer manner to settle into the Gorgie dugout and that writing those two late Dundee United goals at Tannadice would have been greedy.
However, the Englishman’s achievement is not without qualifiers. Few teams will put up as terrible a performance as St Mirren did on Saturday, and after a run of only two points from 24, this win gives something of a season reset and the opportunity to gain momentum.
Everything went as planned, and Blair Spittal’s performance exemplified the astonishing reversal of fortune for a squad that had run out of solutions under former manager Steven Naismith.
The midfielder concluded his greatest performance in a Hearts shirt with a goal, and he was keen to point out that giving Critchley a winning start does not excuse their poor start to the season, but it does create a platform for fresh beginnings.
He stated, “It’s a tremendous result for us. Coming off our defeat at Aberdeen, when we felt the performance was good even if the outcome was not, I stated after the game that we needed to back it up. We needed to start achieving results as well as performance, and we succeeded.
“It’s something we can absolutely expand on. We must realise that we are still in an undesirable situation. We’ve now gotten off to a solid start under our new management.
“That was all we could have asked for, and we now have a crucial Europa Conference League game against Omonia Nicosia on Thursday. Games are now rolling in hot and fast, which is what we want as players when everything is going well.
“It was critical that we scored first because we knew it would be a difficult test against St Mirren, who would attempt to lure us into a brawl. We were able to take that away from them. We needed to get out to a good start, which we accomplished.”
Critchley’s debut coincided with Hearts gaining the league lead for the first time, due to a fantastic Lawrence Shankland flick that set up Kenneth Vargas, who hammered home a low first-half effort, and Daniel Oyegoke curled in a second seconds later.
Stephen Robinson’s side were condemned to their third top-flight loss in a row as James Wilson and Spittal put a deserved shine on the scoreline but the Buddies were abysmal both as an almost non-existent attacking force and in their calamitous defending.
The cynics over Critchley’s appointment will have raised an eyebrow or two over both the way he has spoken and conducted himself since arriving last week and in his ability to get an instant tune out of a squad that had been rock- bottom and beleaguered.
Credit where credit is due, and Spittal acknowledges his new manager has simply been stressing the fundamentals as Thursday night’s match against Omonia is being anticipated with greater confidence.
He remarked, “When the manager came in, he talked about the things we could control, like hard work and devotion.
“He had two or three days to instill certain concepts in us, and he also stated that things would take some time to happen.
“So it was critical that we went out there and rallied the crowd behind us.
“We haven’t given them much to scream about this season, but when you put on performances like that and start the way we did, it brings the entire stadium together, and the supporters were there behind us. It was critical to get the manager’s tenure off to a good start and build momentum heading into the game on Thursday.
“We’re looking forward to it now, but we’re not sure what to anticipate as we’ve never faced Omonoia before.
“It’ll be a tough test, but we’re looking forward to it after a nice win. It was a terrific day all around for the squad, and it gave us something to work on.”
Neil Critchley, the new Hearts manager,
In the middle of a post-match euphoria, Spittal attempted to contextualise the triumph and if it was his best performance since joining Gorgie this summer. He said, “It’s simpler to say that after winning 4-0 and feeling happy.
“Things went smoothly, and the manner we pressured St Mirren allowed us to take the initiative.
“Right from the start, we denied St Mirren any opportunities, which we discussed since we’ve been a little open in transition. We successfully suffocated the game and maintained control throughout.
“It was a really good team performance but we are not going to get carried away.”
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