How do you describe the Heart of Midlothian season so far in a word?

Poll the club's support and the answers will be understandably blunt, likely negative and in many instances strong and perhaps not suitable pre-watershed.

The worst start to a campaign in 46 years does that to a fan base. Seven without a win, six consecutive defeats and just two goals.

It doesn't get much easier after the international break. Hearts return to action this weekend with a daunting trip to Celtic Park, facing a team who look like they could go through the season unbeaten and have the Premiership title all but wrapped up before the Christmas decorations are taken down.

It follows a break where there will have been plenty of reflection within the corridors of Hearts' section of the Oriam.

"With most international breaks we try to be as productive as we can with them," Steven Naismith told Hearts Standard. "We normally try to arrange a game which we managed to do this time.

"We then touched on the areas that are in most in need of improvement short term. The days have been very useful. You lose the internationals which isn’t ideal but for everybody else, particularly the new signings the break has been good for them."

The area "most in need of improvement" is patently obvious. The attack.

Albeit a small sample size of just four league games, a lot of the team's data within the defensive and possession side of the game are encouraging in comparison to last season as a whole. Albeit, it should be noted that StatsBomb does not have a 'shooting yourself in the foot' metric.

First, the defending (this season in red, last season in blue). Fewer shots are being conceded and the xG conceded has decreased while the team are not allowing the opposition much time on the ball before engaging.

And in possession. Just like last season but better in most instances.

Those are used to illustrate that the team are doing aspects of the game well. But also to emphasise the area where they have clearly struggled and need improvement. Hearts average the third-most shots per 90 minutes but the quality of those shots is the joint-worst in the league alongside Ross County.

"In some respects when you look over a year ago there are similarities, we weren’t creating enough chances, we were probably playing too safe," was Naismith's assessment of the attack on reflection of the first seven games. "That’s a lot of what I’ve felt has been happening in these games.

"It’s easy to look at the results and say it is not good enough but if you go into the games a bit more there are elements that have been decent. The goals we have lost have been really, really poor from our point of view.

"We didn’t make the right choice, we made the safe choice when we had possession a lot of the time.

"Ultimately where we sit within the league and where teams see us they make it more difficult for us, they sit in a low block. Dundee United did that. We picked the wrong option too many times which played into their hands. We want our forward players to believe they can go forward, they can try something and not worry about losing the ball.

"Some of our newer forward players have maybe not understood that pressure that comes with playing for Hearts. When the game is tight and maybe not a lot of chances, take the wrong option and you can sense the frustration from the crowd, it’s then how you deal with that. Our newer players are going to take time to deal with that.

"All that has played into the mix of it. We’ve worked on that quite a bit over the last week or so."

Comparing the team's first four games to the first eight of last season where Hearts won three but lost Dundee, Motherwell and St Mirren, there is a clear regression in key metrics.

Shots, goals, expected goals, clear shots, counter-attacking shots, and high-press shots are all down. Some significantly so.

Naismith said he could "totally" understand fan frustration of witnessing their team once again encounter problems opening up deep defences. 

The Hearts head coach noted the new players taking time to adjust and pointed to the bigger picture and how progress is far from linear.

"If you are at Hearts and not winning games, there is an expectation there," he said. "The same kind of things that were an issue at the start of last season.

"I think what’s lost in this, a lot of people have spoken of our good recruitment over the summer but every player we’ve signed has come from a lower-level team or lower expectation team coming into Hearts. That doesn’t just mean it is all going to click.

"I was very conscious last season, new players coming in are going to need time. In this day and age, you don’t get that. There is not any sentiment or understanding of the change that happened over the summer.

"People look at us, we got third, we got Europe so we need to get better than that but where my mind goes to is, name a club outside the Old Firm that has gone on that path and has had that straightforward progression, progression, progression?

"It doesn't happen because the margins are so fine. Every team in the league is so well organised now. It’s harder to beat them and then that demand of playing in Europe and consistently going game after game, it’s tough.

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"The reason it has not happened regularly is because it is tough so you have to see the bigger picture and decide we understand this is a process, a learning process, ultimately the more years we can get ourselves in these positions the more experience we are going to have.

"Every football fan wants to win, they want to feel how they felt at the end of last season but there are not many cases where it has happened year on year on year without splashing loads and loads of money. That’s where we’ve got to get creative.

"We are four games into a league campaign. We narrowly missed out on the Europa League in a tight fixture. I’ve not lost sense of the perspective of the bigger picture."

A valid discussion point amongst the Hearts support has centred around the use of new arrivals Yan Dhanda and Blair Spittal who joined following productive seasons at Ross County and Motherwell respectively. Both thrived in teams where they were a central attacking figure behind the striker or a pair of strikers.

Naismith refuted the viewpoint that the duo need to play as No.10s.

"I think there are a lot of dynamic changes when a player signs for Hearts," he explained. "I've experienced this first hand from being at Kilmarnock and going to Rangers.

"Teams don’t set up the same way against Ross County and Motherwell as they do set up against Hearts. That’s just fact. The games and the way they play out are totally different. That in itself changes the dynamic of how they play.

"To say only those two players play No.10 for previous clubs isn’t true. Yan Dhanda played in a midfield three in a 3-5-2, he played on the left. Blair Spittal similar, played on the right and the left, played a 10, played in the front three. I feel this comes from pundits and presenters who have to put a narrative out there.

"The two players haven’t played in any position that is different to what they’ve played for their previous clubs. Playing in a Hearts team is different from playing in teams where they have come from.

"There is a level of adjustment and understanding, especially at Hearts, where you are one of those forward players and you play a risky pass and it gets cut out, we are having to over-commit players in the attack to get that goal and what that does is open up opportunities for a counter-attack. That doesn’t happen regularly in other games as it does against ourselves.

"It is a mixture of everything. Players settle at different rates, when they are in the team that is their opportunity to show. We have got good competition in the forward areas."