The inside track on Calem Nieuwenhof's Hearts renaissance

The central midfielder was one of Steven Naismith’s first signings as head coach, but it took the Aussie a while to fully acclimatise to the rough-and-tumble nature of life in the Scottish Premiership. It wasn’t so long ago that supporters were questioning what it was exactly that Nieuwenhof brought to the team; now they are fretting about how the team will cope without him. It’s a funny old game.

Nieuwenhof will miss Monday night’s trip to Cappielow after picking up a hamstring injury in last week’s 2-0 win over Celtic, and is, according to Naismith, set to be out for a few weeks. It’s unfortunate timing for a player who is surely on the brink of a first call-up to the senior Socceroos team as it appears he will have to wait a little longer to tick off that particular personal milestone.

READ MORE: Calem Nieuwenhof confirms Hearts hamstring injury and will miss Scottish Cup tie

Patience pays off

If Nieuwenhof’s stint in Gorgie thus far has taught us anything, it is the value of patience. During the first half of the campaign, Nieuwenhof was struggling to make his presence felt despite starting most of Hearts’ games. Naismith stuck by his summer signing, though, avowing that it was only a matter of time before Nieuwenhof would come good. The head coach was always adamant that the midfielder would become a crucial component in the heart of his side, even when the evidence suggested otherwise.

Take a look at the above radar, which shows how Nieuwenhof performed across a range of key metrics compared to his fellow Premiership midfielders. Let’s be honest: there really isn’t all that much to shout about. With the exception of the number of pressures he commits per game (adjusted for possession), Nieuwenhof was below the 50th percentile in each and every metric we’ve highlighted. Whether it was creating chances from open play, winning the ball back, winning fouls or dribbling forward, Nieuwenhof found himself operating at a below-average level.

Still, though, Naismith remained convinced that he had a player on his hands. He reiterated that belief at the coaches' presentation in January. Nieuwenhof was thoroughly scouted, and his all-round play impressed the Hearts head coach. There was just one question: could he adapt to Scottish football?

“We thought he was a box-to-box midfielder,” Naismith told Hearts Standard. “He’s somebody who can be a No.6. As with all the players in the middle of the pitch, even if it’s not their primary position or their go-to, they must be able to look after the ball and have an understanding of, ‘Right, I need to bring this ball down and play a pass. If I’m under pressure, I still need to do it. I’m not just kicking it forward’. He had that.

“He’s somebody that showed he has the intelligence for his positioning in the A-League, and he also showed that he can score a few goals. His intelligence in terms of running – when to make runs, where to put himself on the pitch – all these small details were good.

“The biggest thing was going to be the step up from the A-League to the Premiership and the frantic nature of it, his robustness. I think we saw that side. He was comfortable going into tackles and he was comfortable taking a bang, which are all indicators that he would be a success in Scotland.”

At times, Nieuwenhof seemed a little reluctant to embrace the physicality that’s inherent within Scottish football. Sometimes he would be a little too slow out of the traps to chase down second balls.

Sometimes he was a little too rushed in possession, and careless with his passing.

Slowly, though, Nieuwenhof started finding form and started to do the little things right. And then he exploded into life.

READ MORE: Ability, versatility, consistency: How Alex Cochrane became a key Hearts player

New year, new Nieuwenhof

Since the winter break, though, Nieuwenhof has noticeably raised his game. It all started with that long-range howitzer against Dundee that marked his first goal in maroon in fine fashion, and the 23-year-old simply hasn’t looked back. He was the best player on the park in the 1-0 win away to St Johnstone, he ran the game in the 2-0 victory over Motherwell, impressed in the draw with Hibs and was a standout performer in Sunday’s 2-0 win over Celtic.

The Nieuwenhof hype train has been gathering pace in recent months, and it is a shame that its progress has been interrupted by an injury that will keep the Aussie sidelined for a few weeks. But there’s every reason to believe that he will pick up where he left off.

Take a look at the above radar, which shows how Nieuwenhof has been performing in the league since the turn of the year. Now, there are a few key areas where he’s excelling and there has been significant progress in other departments too. His overall passing accuracy has noticeably improved, as has his passing accuracy under pressure. He’s managing more deep completions (successful passes within 20 metres of the opposition goal), applies more pressure off the ball, and gives it away less.

It's a dramatic improvement, which begs the question: why has this happened?

“There’s not been anything that we’ve had to change or where we’ve gone, ‘We need to work on this’,” Naismith explained. “Every day we are drip-feeding our main fundamental parts of our football plan in and out of possession. We work on our six areas of the game [in possession, out of possession, attacking transition, defensive transition, set-pieces and game management] and it’s just been reinforcing that.

“I’ve felt the biggest thing for Calem is that he has to understand his potential. Not in terms of his future, but going into each game he’s got the opportunity to dictate where he sits on that pitch. Whether he’s going to be a guy who runs the game, whether he’s going to be a guy who influences the game at times when he gets the opportunity, or he can be somebody who works hard and lets somebody else take the credit for his hard work. It’s about that side of it and understanding, ‘This is in my hands, how am I going to affect this?’.

“Now, he doesn’t do the same in every game – every game is different – but it’s about having an understanding of how he can best place himself so he's influencing the game and being the main man. That’s something that he has to learn and become confident and slightly arrogant with, but in a good way. He knows he’s good enough and it’s just about going out and doing it.

“As the season has gone on, he has just grown and grown. In the first three months, he had the opportunity to get to grips with Scottish football and get used to Scottish culture, Scottish lifestyle, the pressures of playing at Hearts – and he has consistently got better. That’s because he’s played more, he’s a few months further down the line with our daily detail, and he’s grown in confidence.

“I said from day one that he would be a really good Hearts player. For me, this isn’t a surprise or a shock; it’s part of the process. That’s what we saw before we signed him, and that’s what we saw when he came in. He was one of the first signings to come into the building because we knew what we were getting. Then it’s about how long it’ll take him to hit his stride, how long he will need to adapt. It’s different for every player.”

READ MORE: How Steven Naismith helped Kye Rowles rediscover his defensive mojo

Jack of all trades

Naismith is clearly a big fan of Nieuwenhof. No other Hearts midfielder has racked up as many minutes as the Australian this season, and a big part of that is down to his tactical versatility. The head coach sees Nieuwenhof as a traditional No.8, scuttling between both boxes, but he believes that the midfielder has the necessary composure to fulfil a variety of roles. As his radar suggests, he is a jack of all trades who doesn’t excel in one particular area of the game – but he can do a little bit of everything to a high standard.

“I think he is an all-round midfielder,” Naismith said. “His intelligence of understanding what we want is a big part of it. If I told him, ‘I want you to sit in the middle of the park, you’ve not to go over the halfway line, get on the ball and play forward passes’ then he’ll do that. If we say to him, ‘Make more runs forward because when we’re in the final third you must be part of the attack’ then he’ll do that. That’s the difference with him.

“He’s one of the highest in terms of distance covered per game. We have got a few areas of the pitch that really stand out because of the way we play but he is definitely one that is in the highest group most week. That’s more down to certain positions and certain detail of what we’re wanting in each game. But day-to-day he’s got a decent output when compared to the squad as a whole.

“His general all-round football ability is good. He’s calm under pressure, he’s got a good touch and he’s deceptively quick. He’s a good ball carrier and once he gets his legs open, he has got a big stride and he is powerful. He is an all-round midfielder and you could put him into any role and he would be comfortable to perform at a good level.”

Naismith has certainly put that theory to the test in recent months. Nieuwenhof usually found himself lining up in his usual berth at right central midfield, but his tactical instructions would vary from game to game. It’s part of the reason his upturn in form has been so eye-catching. He’s played different roles, with different instructions, but the end result has been the same: another impressive display.

Take the 1-0 win at McDiarmid Park, for instance. Here was Nieuwenhof at his all-round best. At one end he would snuff out promising moves, he would stretch the defence at the other, and keep things ticking over in between by ensuring Hearts didn't lose possession.

Or how about the home win over Motherwell, where Nieuwenhof was metronomic in the middle, sitting a little deeper? On that day, he misplaced a solitary pass and provided space for Yutaro Oda and Nathaniel Atkinson to expose. It was, as Naismith mentioned earlier, the sort of mature and selfless display that allowed his teammates to take the game by the scruff of its neck.

Or how about the most recent case in point, Sunday’s 2-0 win over Celtic? With Hearts a man up for the vast majority of the game, Nieuwenhof was tasked with breaking the champions’ lines and being Hearts’ main man in possession. And that’s exactly what he was.

Nieuwenhof’s broad skill set is one of his greatest assets – and Naismith has been making good use of it lately.

READ MORE: Calm, composed and collected: How Beni Baningime became a key player for Hearts

Slow start but worth the wait

Nieuwenhof's upturn in form should serve as a lesson for us all: we could be a little more patient when it comes to judging new arrivals. It took Nieuwenhof the best part of half a season and 20-odd games to get fully up to speed, and you'd find it difficult to find a Hearts supporter who would argue it's not been worth the wait.

Kyosuke Tagawa and more recently Scott Fraser haven't exactly set the heather alight so far in their short Hearts careers thus far, and fans have understandably been questioning their value to the team. What exactly is it they're providing that others aren't?

Similar questions were asked of Nieuwenhof in the not-so-distant past, and the midfielder has gone on to answer those emphatically. He is living, breathing evidence of the importance of patience - and, as he has shown, a little more of that can go a long way indeed.