Heart of Midlothian head coach Steven Naismith spoke to the press after his side's 1-0 win over Livingston. A result which lifted the team into fourth place.

He spoke about Kenneth Vargas after his winning goal, being patient against a Livi side which sat in and the importance of the win.

READ MORE: Hearts 1-0 Livingston instant analysis: Vital goal, key sub, possible transfer target

Here is everything he had to say after the game...

Do you feel like you finally got your reward there after banging on the door all night?

The biggest and most pleasing thing for me is the patience we showed. I’ve been here many a time when it gets desperate and you’re firing long balls in and shooting from 40 yards. But there was real control. We were unfortunate not to go in a goal or two up and that can lead to players being desperate or making the wrong choice but we continued to do the same stuff, create chances and we got our rewards in the end. I was pretty comfortable. You can hope you will get the goal but I was quite confident the way the game was going, they were getting deeper and more spaces were happening. Our fresher players came on and they produced.

A big thing as well was that the crowd remained patient?

It’s probably one of the biggest things being at Hearts is understanding the demands. It’s not about if you are not winning within half an hour it’s not good enough and the fans are on your back. If they can see what is happening and they understand what you are doing then this is a great place to play. Teams are going to come here and sit and frustrate and try and counter, we continued to play with good pace and the structure was really good. We had nearly nine or 10 players in the final third half at times which is important to move the ball and make chances. There’s guys who may not get the ball but they make spaces for others. All these things played their part in a good team performance.

A great moment for Kenneth Vargas to get his first goal?

I said during the week he’s unfortunate. He’s a guy who we’ve relied on more than we should have for a young player. He’s done a lot of hard graft without reward. He’s a real talent with loads of quality. Tonight everyone is buzzing because he scored but he wins a header in the 95th minute when we are defending a corner. He’s a top player. He will be a top player and he got his rewards for being patient. I’m very pleased for him. It was a deserved winner.

How important was it to get a win ahead of Sunday's semi-final?

It was an important win not just for the weekend but for the demands of the club. If you draw at home it’s not going to be good enough in a lot of matches. So it’s a good win because of that secondly it’s been a good week in terms of the majority of the performance at Rangers, tonight’s performance and win gives us a good bounce for Sunday which will be an important game but one we are confident about.