Steven Naismith has warned the Hearts squad to get out of their comfort zone as he gets set to make his pitch as permanent boss.
The interim gaffer has stepped in following Robbie Neilson’s shock departure earlier this week at Tynecastle. Naismith wants to make an immediate impact in the Edinburgh derby at Easter Road – and claiming third spot by the end of term. He will throw everything into the remaining seven games and see where his long term future lies. Naismith said: “In all honesty it has not been pitched as anything, it was, ‘can you take the team?’. That was the starting point, for me that comes from my relationship with the club. I’ve got a brilliant, really honest relationship.
“From now until the end of season I’ll take the team and I’ll do the best I can. I’ve said before, I want to be a manager. Has this come quicker than expected? Yes. Am I ready for it and well equipped? Yes. Do I want to be a manager come the end of the season? I don’t know, we’ll see how this goes. If I’m enjoying it all and I think, ‘I’ve got a right buzz here, I love this’. I might want to go and say, ‘by the way, I’m ready to be a manager, I’d like to be considered’.
“I was in an amazing situation where I was in my life in terms of being B team manager, Scotland coach, brilliant for where I was at, learning all the time with no real, real pressure. So I’ve loved it and that might be an option and that might be where I go back to.
"But this is a great opportunity to try something I want to do and if works and everybody is happy it might continue. If it doesn’t, then I go to an amazing situation I was in before. That’s how I’ve seen it and that’s how the club see it.”
Naismith wasn’t afraid to make an impact and he’s already shaken up the Hearts squad to get it. He has cut ties with Robert Snodgrass and is preparing wholesale changes to the side tomorrow.
Naismith reckons the squad were on cruise control in recent weeks after a sense they already had third spot in the bag. The Gorgie men’s big lead has evaporated on the back of five defeats on the spin and Aberdeen are now in pole position to claim the £5m European bounty.
Naismith said: “The biggest thing is enjoying it. From what I have seen, from the players, in the three days I have been here, there are really good players here, better than I thought.
“But the first thing I said to the players is: ‘The last six weeks, we’ve coasted. And that’s why you’ve not got a good points gap. Because you’ve coasted along, and been safe. Why have you been safe?
"Because you have felt uncomfortable and have not enjoyed being in the atmosphere on the pitch. That’s what we need to get back to, because for the last 18 months, they have played at that level and it has been brilliant, they haven’t turned into bad players.
"So it’s an issue of getting rid of any baggage, any feeling of being safe. I know we’re going to make mistakes, lose goals. But I think we’re going to score more goals, and I think the boys will enjoy it and we’ll attack and play football everyone enjoys, everyone buys into, and that gives us the best chance of winning games.”
Naismith is not worried about putting his reputation on the line. He added: “It’s just the unknown, that feeling unknown, how the players are going to respond, how the staff are going to respond?
"How am I going to deal with situations that I’ve never been in before? But I could not have had a better three days if I’m being honest, they’ve been long, there has not been a lot of sleep, not just me, staff, everybody. That’s the way we work, we’ll work until everything is done.”
