The head coach of Hearts has given his assessment of the team’s loss to Rangers.
Following Hearts’ close loss to Rangers at Ibrox, head coach Neil Critchley claims that some players were upset about a potential handball.
Despite a strong performance from the Gorgie team, a goal from Cyriel Dessers within the opening ten minutes was sufficient to give the home team a 1-0 victory in this Premiership match. This means that going into the year’s last international break, Hearts are still in second place in the league.
In the second half, Kenneth Vargas struck the post, and just before halftime, he grabbed a wayward pass from John Souttar that was unsuccessful. At the end of the game, Hearts mounted a final attack as players appealed for handball, which left goalkeeper Craig Gordon angry. Instead of an on-field VAR review for a ball handling, the full-time whistle was blown.
Critchley claims that Gordon was upset about the potential handball, but the head coach was confused by the three minutes of extra time. “I think because it was a possible handball,” he clarified. I haven’t seen it returned yet, and I’m not sure if it was in the box or not. I’m not sure. The duration of three minutes, in my opinion, should have been longer.
“I don’t recall the physios coming on or anything during our seven minutes at St Johnstone last week. I’m not sure where the three minutes came from. I think it ought to have been longer. Thus, it’s possible that we would have been awarded a free kick. since we were exerting ourselves till the very end.
“The players went all the way to the end and gave it their all.” We were on the verge of something falling for us, and all we needed was a tiny bit of… Occasionally, a little bit of luck is also necessary, and we haven’t had that in the previous several games.
Critchley bemoaned a lack of finishing during his team’s 2-0 Conference League loss to Heidenheim on Thursday. He wants his team to avoid turning into nearly men. “We got off to the worst possible start,” he stated of the entire game. At first, we were overly cautious.
Rangers scored. Although I believe we improved as the game went on, their greatest moments most likely came when they broke on us in the first half and we gave up the ball in the middle of the pitch. However, we had a lot of game control. We had a huge opportunity just after halftime, and I thought that the game might have gone even more our way if we had taken advantage of it given the atmosphere on the pitch.
“I believe we’ve dominated the second half, pushed Rangers back, and had close calls.” We shouldn’t be an early team, though. The sentiment ‘Oh, good performance’ is something I don’t want to hear. Gaining points and winning games are the goals of good performance, and we ought to have gained something from today’s match.
“You understand that you won’t have many chances, but we could have produced more if we had made better decisions, passes, and crosses. It lost us at least one point today since we were disappointed by our last-minute failure on Thursday night.
The new head coach now has more time on the training pitch to communicate his ideas to the team thanks to an international break. “The next few days we’ve got to get the balance right,” Critchley continued when discussing preparations for their comeback match against Celtic.
“I believe our current game schedule has been really demanding. Therefore, we will be in for training over the next three days. For those who haven’t played, there will be a game in the middle of the week. That is very significant. They will recover for a while, and we will undoubtedly have a week before Celtic, which is crucial.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE
