Steven Naismith spoke in the aftermath of the 1-0 win at Kilmarnock about how four consecutive league wins shouldn't be a big deal for a club of the stature of Heart of Midlothian. It was the first time a Hearts team had strung four wins together in the top-flight since the start of the 2018/19. 

The Hearts head coach - and Premiership manager of the month for November - will feel exactly the same way about the team's results away from home. Winning outside of Gorgie four times in the space of 14 league games shouldn't be a big deal.

But it is. Why? Because as every fan of the club knows, as soon as Hearts leave Edinburgh they are so often enveloped by inconsistency and at times incompetency.

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Since the Scottish top-flight moved to 12 teams in 2000, in how many seasons have Hearts won fewer than four times away from Tynecastle Park?

Five. Three of those have arrived in the last six Premiership campaigns, including last season. In addition, the win at Killie equalled a further five seasons in which Hearts won just four away games.

So, yes, four victories on the road in the first 14 league games of a top-flight campaign is an impressive feat for this Hearts side.

Of the previous 21 seasons in the Scottish top tier, the team has reached four away league wins in fewer number of fixtures just four times. Of course, that included the 2005/06 season when George Burley's won their first matches away from Tynecastle.

Across those 21 top-flight campaigns, Hearts have averaged five away wins.

Asked why the upturn in results outside of EH11, captain Lawrence Shankland admitted he was unsure but did offer up one possibility.

"It's not like we weren't trying last year," he said. "There were probably a lot of draws last year where we couldn't get the goal to win the game or get ourselves ahead and I think the type of games like Saturday if you can get yourself ahead it gives you something to hold out for and I thought we did that really well."

Hearts Standard:

Shankland may have a point. Hearts are the only team to have not drawn an away game so far this season, while last season they drew seven and lost nine. 

The ultimate goal for the team is to finish at least third, securing a return to European group stage football and a strong away record will go a long way. Within that there can be a number of other aims. One of those could be becoming the first Hearts team to win 10  away games in a top-flight campaign since the 1991/92 season when that team won 15 in a 44-game league. 

Since then two Hearts sides have reached nine, both managed by Jim Jefferies and Billy Brown. One was in 1997/98 when the club ran Celtic and Rangers close in the league and, of course, won the Scottish Cup. The other was the 2010/11 vintage with Kevin Kyle and Rudi Skacel in attack.

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"Quite frankly that was the thing, we didn't take any different approach to away games as we did home games," Brown told Hearts Standard. "We always had a go, we tried to win everywhere we went. The only time that we had to take care was when Rangers had [Paul] Gascoigne and [Brian] Laudrup and Celtic had [Henrik] Larsson and [Paolo] Di Canio. But in general we didn't overthink it, we went and played them and tried to win.

"If we went away from home and I said to Colin Cameron or Neil McCann, two of the biggest winners you'll ever meet, that we'll sit deeper today and try and contain them, they wouldn't have had that in the first place, that wasn't in their psyche. The same with [Stevie] Fulton, David Weir, [Paul] Ritchie, Gary Locke. The team is defined by the players you get."

He added: "The answer is to play every game away the same, that's my attitude to it, get out and play."

Brown reiterated the need for a winning mentality and believes the club have the right man in charge in Naismith to instil that having worked with the Hearts head coach when he was breaking through at Kilmarnock.

"The players' mentalities from both teams were winning mentalities. We weren't scared to go anywhere. We had the players to cope with anything. 

"It is all about mentality and I think that Naisy will have that mentality. He wants to win all the time as well."