NEW HEARTS SIGNINGS AND SQUAD SIZE MADE CLEAR WITH EUROPE IN MIND

New players, a new squad size and new opportunities are in prospect at Hearts for next season as the club prepare to balance domestic games with European fixtures. The first-team group will increase slightly to cope with demands and the club are also determined to harness more youth academy graduates at senior level.

Allied to league and cup games, Hearts face at least eight European ties next term after finishing third in this season’s Premiership. They enter the Europa League play-off in August and have a parachute into the Conference League should they lose at that stage. Head coach Steven Naismith is conscious of the impact continental fixtures can have and the juggling act he will encounter.

“That is probably the most short-term challenge we have,” he said. “People talk about we need to close the gap [to Old Firm], we need to be challenging. Our biggest challenge is dealing with the schedule of being in Europe and competing in the league so that the next season you are in the same position. That’s the challenge, the No.1 goal for us at the moment.

“You can have one good season, get into Europe’s group stages, but if the next season you are in the bottom-six, there’s no progression there. That’s the problem. It’s not going to be easy. We are going to ask a lot of the squad because it is not just the quality of the teams you are playing and the fatigue, it’s the travel, the mindset, relentless nature of constantly thinking about football every minute of every day. That’s the biggest difference for players. Normally they go week-to-week and you have time to spread out the detail.”

Two new midfielders are already signed on pre-contracts in the form of Ross County’s Yan Dhanda and Motherwell’s Blair Spittal. They will join Livingston defender James Penrice as new recruits at Riccarton for next season, and more will follow. They will need to adapt quickly to expectations at their new place of work. Naismith can recall the overwhelming feeling of experiencing European football for the first time from his days as a Rangers player.

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“I found it hard at the start,” he admitted. “When you’re a young player and you have not experienced it before, it’s full on. When you look back you realise that, but you’re either a player that thrives on it and has that mentality that pushes you over the edge and makes you able to deal with it, or you’re not.

“When I was at Rangers there were quite a few of us who came in at the same time and experienced European football for the first time. We dealt with it well, eventually. Then, if you become an international player, that’s the normal schedule. For us that’s the biggest challenge. We have a young team, we’ve risen to the challenges this season has presented us with. Next season is the next one.”

Navigating European and Scottish commitments is also likely to be a fairly steep learning curve in Naismith’s own coaching career. He only took charge of the Hearts first team last summer and has enjoyed a successful first campaign. “For me, you’re leaning all the time,” he said. “There are loads of mistakes that are made – some get covered by a result, some don’t. Some are subtle and don’t have an impact on the game. That whole learning side is happening all the time for me.

“In terms of the belief, as a player I was like, ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ going into every game. That’s probably the root of what gave me my success. I was up for everything. My first Champions League game was Barcelona away at a time when they were the best team in the world, and some are saying maybe in the history of the game. I never went into it thinking I was worried. I saw the opportunity in it and that’s the same way I have been as a coach. And then going forward, if we get into Europe and we’re playing European teams, it will be the same there.”

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Hearts finished third in 2021/22 and set off on a group-stage adventure in the Conference League under Naismith’s predecessor, Robbie Neilson. They came fourth in 2022/23 and lost at the competition’s play-off stage against Greek side PAOK Salonika. Now they are confirmed in third spot again this year. Many players from the European campaign two years ago are still with the club and will know what to expect.

“Yeah, exactly,” agreed Naismith. “The squad need to take a lot of credit because that season they were in a not bad place by the time they came out of Europe. That gives you a lot of confidence that we have an understanding of what’s to come. The way I work compared to Robbie is slightly different in that I have rotated a little more than he did. I feel we build a squad and we believe in everybody within that squad. We’ve shown that this season and that will be really important next season.”

Hearts are looking at increasing squad size and also giving burgeoning young players more game time in the months ahead. They are currently operating with a 27-man first-team pool, in which midfielders Macaulay Tait and Aidan Denholm both cemented places this term. “You might have one or two more players than this season, in terms of experienced players,” said Naismith.

“I’m not going to bring in loads of players who, later down the line, destroy what you’re trying to build within the group. We have got good academy players, we want to try and give them opportunities. There’s one or two, plus Finlay Pollock, who can step up and be part of the group. Macaulay and Denholm have done it this season, there’s a few more who can do it next season. So we’ll rely on that in parts as well.”

It won’t be a case of one team for midweek European ties and another for weekend league fixtures. “I wish it was as straightforward as that,” smirked Naismith. “You’ve got to get the balance. First of all, every game in Scotland is hard. You don’t go into many games thinking: ‘If we’re at 70 per cent we’ll get a result today.’ That’s the hard part. What we have got to do is give them chances and again, like we say to the academy players all the time, we’ll give them opportunities but they need to deserve those and earn them.

“We’re not just doing it for face value, there’s no longevity in that. So it will be a mixture of both, but on the recruitment side we’ll sign players we think will make us better, and we’ll sign players we think will be assets to us. If that’s maybe one or two more than we’d like because the timing suits us to do it, we’ll do it. But on the flip of that, I’m not just going to sign players for the sake of signing them.”

2024-05-07T21:37:14Z dg43tfdfdgfd