Steven Naismith on Hearts progression and Connor Smith exit

The Hearts head coach spoke about the progress he wants the team to make, Alan Forrest's improvement, Connor Smith, the threat of the Saints and, of course, Lawrence Shankland.

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At the time of speaking, you are closer to Rangers than the teams below, when do you start looking up the table?

You don’t. Come April, May time and you’re lucky and you manage to continue that progression then you hope and you probably hope the dynamic of the situation and where the pressure sits gives you a bit of a hand. But you don’t, we need to be realistic. Longer term, our goal is always to deal with what the next step is, and that is consistently being in Europe and consistently pushing to be in those places at the end of the season. But that’s hard. It’s easy saying that, but it’s hard, as every club in Scotland shows in Europe, the Old Firm included. They’ve got more experience and they manage to be at the end of the season challenging. But, for the rest of us, we need to get more teams in the group stages, and it needs to be continuous to gain experience. Until you’re at that point, there’s no point in looking beyond that. We’re realistic. We’re driven and we want to do as well as we can, but we never really look that far ahead. 

So the progression is finishing third consistently, then getting further in Europe and dealing with European demands consistently?

Yes, and then hopefully creating a bigger gap below you and you’re consistently becoming a third-placed team. So, even if you have a bad spell you can consistently be in and around that. That’s progression. As with everything you build a club that’s challenging for everything.

You had a bad spell earlier in the season, you may be looking at the end of the season 'only if we got to this level sooner'?

I said at one point I was looking forward to two away games coming up because it would tell us a lot about the character of the players after doing a lot of work. We then came through that spell and at the start of next season we’ll look back at this season and go, ‘this bit wasn’t good enough, we need to learn from that and we need to get better’. That’s the way it’ll be. And that’s the way we work every day, from what we do in and out of possession and what we do at goal kicks and what we do at set plays. It’s constantly just reviewing it and getting better and making better choices. On the bigger scale and talking about getting into Europe, it’s about being third and challenging. It’s all the same stuff. You don’t set out and say, ‘there’s the goal there, let’s go’. It’s the small steps you have to focus on.

Is it also a time thing as well with a new management team?

You do need time. But you’re in an industry now where that’s hard to get. I’m fortunate - and it’s partly why I’ve been at the club for so long, as a player and beyond that as a coach - because I know the people involved with the club and what their goal is. And what they want and how ambitious they want to be. But the hardest part is the first part. The players are all starting from blank and they don’t know what I think is good and what I want. It’s about constantly making mistakes to go, ‘no, that’s not what we’re doing, it’s this’. And, as you can see now, I think in most games there’s an idea of how we’re going to play and where our players are going to be and the positions they’re going to be in to try to win games. The first part was the defence, getting it solid. Last season, even when I was in charge, we conceded far too many goals, and cheap goals at that. We knew that was an issue and you have to sort that, because if you don’t then you’re struggling. As we’ve gone on we’re playing better stuff, we’re more threatening, we’ve got more control. So, come next summer, we don’t go back to the start. It’s about adding the next layer and the next layer and the next layer that makes us even better and more consistent.

What is the next layer?

Going forward, the more the games go on and the more we play teams, they are showing us more respect and sitting deeper. The hardest thing in a game is when you are up against a low block and you have to break them down. We’re inconsistent with that. At times we do it and at other times we don’t. We need that to become the norm and know how to deal with it. That’s probably the next step. And if we’re successful and we get into Europe, it’s about dealing with that challenge, from the summer to Christmas, and being able to do both. That’s asking a lot of the players, it’s asking a lot of the young players and it’s asking a lot of us recruitment-wise to get it right. You need all of those things to be near enough perfect going into a European campaign to give you a chance of competing in every game.

What do you expect from St Johnstone? It will be the third different Saints you will face compared to the previous two games this season.

They’ve done a decent bit of work in January in terms of recruitment, so it’ll be different. And they’ve changed quite a few times in the systems they play and actually the way they’ve played in games recently. That comes down to there being more of an opportunity in some games and they think they have to have more of a go. Against us, it might be different. We’ve got an idea of how they’ll play. But, in the bigger picture, we need to get away from totally changing. It needs to be just small details we’re changing from game to game, and that’s no different in this game. We know they’ll have some threats and who and what we need to do to stop that. And then how we’re going to cause them problems.

READ MORE: Lawrence Shankland transfer price and what Hearts were told of contract offer

You talked about St Johnstone's recruitment and threats, could one of those be Connor?

Connor goes into the game and he's rubbing his hands because it's an opportunity but I had a brilliant relationship with Connor. Him moving says more about him personally. For us, we could have said 'Connor, stay here'. It's not helping Connor. Yes, it might be good for him to say he is a Hearts player but he needs to go somewhere he has not come through as a youth player, he's a first-team player and he's got real quality that I think he will kick right on now and that was the kind of chats we had. As hard as it can be sometimes to leave the club you have come through and you have a good association with, he'll look back in three, four, five years' time and go 'that was the best thing I did for sure'. We need to know that he is one of their threats because we know how good he is. I know personally because I worked with him a lot over the last few years.

What have you seen in Alan Forrest's game that has improved since you've come in?

Consistency. That is the biggest thing. He's always been somebody who has got good ability, more so in training, you would see it. Attitude, work rate are second to none but he then had the qualities in those moments, you see it a lot in training but then in games, you would question 'he was ineffective today'. From when we took over last season, that was the biggest thing I said to him 'Al, you are a dream pro in terms of your attitude, how you work but you are not young. You are now at the point you need to be an experienced player who is a first-team player, not a squad player'. Al has done that every bit of his career. He went to Ayr, an opportunity and he becomes the main man at Ayr which gets him the move to Livi. Goes to Livi and becomes the main man at Livi. He then needs to do that here. He cannae just say 'I've got to Hearts'. He has got the quality to be a main player here and we are seeing that. His reward is justified and it is also all down to him. Just like his new contract is all down to him. His hard work and persistence at the start of the season, it was hard for him because he never played loads. He played but because the competition was there he never got much leeway which means he had to make sure he was contributing in every game and we are seeing that now, he's doing it every week. He is doing it every week. Massive respect for Alan and what he has done, he's getting the reward for it.

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With the rotation in the final third, how hard is it to leave him out of the starting XI?

That is down to the games, how much you see in training, the quality. As I've said, the forward players need to be off their top level slightly and it gives the upper hand to the defenders. The defenders just need to defend it. The forwards need to beat them, need to come up with that moment so it is about judging that but also knowing that when someone is on such a high everything is easy for them so that fatigue isn't there because they are loving and enjoying every moment of it and you tend to find that's when they come up with big moments like that the weekend. Al's consistently played, played and played but never looked fatigued. He was ready to go and he produced the goods.

Other than Shankland he's the one impacting games the most for you over the the last four, five, six weeks?

Yeah, but on that, top I would say Shanks and probably now Al are both getting a lot of praise. Shanksy's numbers, his touches in the box, his chances, his actual shots on target and Al's contributions and touches in the final third are all as high as they have been in their careers. That's down to us as a team and the work we do that gets them that. Their job is the hardest part of the game, to do something, to score goals but all the stats away from that and the headlines are because we are a good team and what we do to get them the ball in those situations. As much of the praise needs to go to the group as it does to the guys at the top end of the pitch who are getting the just rewards.

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As a manager does the contract situation with Shankland give you anything to deal with on a personal level?

I've said it a lot, Shanks is a real professional. He's dealt with it better than I ever did in my career. I have honest chats with everybody. It is the same with players who have got six months left on their contract and their situation at the moment. It's speaking to them all and being honest. But you also have to be realistic and that's for a player out of contract who is coming back from an injury or someone who is not getting many minutes. You need to be realistic and say 'listen, you need to do this. It might not be here, you are going to be thinking about your next move' or somebody like Shanks, he needs to consider loads. But you just be honest with him. There has got to be a realisation, just like when you ask about challenging the teams above, let's be realistic here. Shanks is at a major part of his career. What will be will be. But it is the same for all the players.

Will you understand that come the summer when he has got a year left on his contract the club will have to do certain things that might not be great for yourself as a manager and the squad?

I would say I am more leaning towards the club's side than my personal side with all these big decisions. I want to be part of something that grows and is much better when I leave and much better than when I took over. That is part of us bringing players through, whether it is improving players and selling them on or academy players and selling them. That has to happen for us to be better and improve. The whole thing is the same. My mindset is clear on that and I think as a club we are all in alignment with it all