It wasn't the circumstances that Zander Clark wanted to make his first Hearts start. The big keeper will make his full debut away to former club St Johnstone. The 30-year-old admitted it will be a bittersweet moment. He has been patient and desperate to make his first full appearance for the Jambos but a lot of that excitement has been subdued by the way the door has been opened for him.
Craig Gordon suffered a double leg-break on Christmas Eve that has now left the veteran goalkeeper’s playing career hanging in the balance. It will now give Clark the chance to stake his claim to be Hearts No. 1 between now and the summer, but he wished it had been in far different circumstances.
Clark explained: “On a personal note I was delighted to come in but it’s bittersweet in the circumstances First and foremost I’m gutted for Craigy. He’s been brilliant, even just before it (the injury) you saw the save from (Steven) Fletcher. It kept us in there with a fighting chance in the game.
“But football is a cruel game, these things happen and hopefully he recovers quickly. Of course. When you’re a goalkeeper and an opportunity opens up and you get a chance you need to make sure you go in and do well for the team and yourself. I could stand here all day and tell you how good the big man (Craig) is, I don’t need to, everybody knows it. It’s a tough task. I just need to make sure I am ready to go. I felt good in training this week, I was ready for that moment if it ever came around.”
Clark, who came off the bench against United, stated Gordon confirmed Gordon has been a big influence on him in their time together for both club and country. He stated: “I have benefitted a lot, I said that when I joined the club.
“Going away with Scotland camps and working with him for 9-10 days you can learn so much from him, he has done so much in the game. I am one of those ones, no matter where I go or who I train with, I try to take wee bits of advice and have chats, I am probably a pest to them! But it’s something I do, and when he has played at the level he has for the length of his career I think it would be daft not to try and use a bit of that experience and see where you go with it.”
Ironically, Clark will make his first start at the club that helped put him on the map. The Scotland squad keeper spent more than a decade at McDiarmid Park. He helped Saints to win both domestic cups before he left on freedom of contract this summer for a new challenge.
Clark has insisted old loyalties will need to go out the window. He confirmed: “Aye it seems to work that way, doesn’t? Yeah, great memories. I spent 13 years there. I enjoyed some success, I didn’t enjoy some darker periods and stuff.
“But that’s all in the past now, it’s all about going there and preventing them from getting the win. My full focus will be on making sure I do things properly in training and get myself ready. It’s a club close to my heart. They gave me a chance in football when I thought that was it done for me. So it’s a club I will always be grateful to. But when I go there on Wednesday I’m no longer there. It’s all about being a Hearts player and making sure the team and myself are ready to go.”
It will be Clark’s first start since the play-off games where he helped to keep St Johnstone in the Premiership. It has been a long time coming. Clark decided to quit St Johnstone and was looking for a move to England, but it didn’t come. He then answered Robbie Neilson’s call to move to the capital.
Clark confirmed: “Yeah, obviously it’s difficult, any footballer wants to play games. I was under no illusions when I came to the club that it would be a challenge to play regular football - or even just football! But I had it when I broke through at St Johnstone, Alan Mannus was a top goalkeeper as well to try and displace him. It’s frustrating but it gives you something to work towards. Something to make sure that when you go into training every day you are ready in case something like this does happen.”
Clark also helped Hearts have a pretty poor record in Perth but now he is determined to change that particular statistic, to help them try and go clear in third place. The Scotland squad keeper joked: “I don’t know, for me it was always a tough place to go, especially a midweek game. It’s always been a tough ground for clubs to go to. We need to make sure we are right at it from minute one on Wednesday and we’ll get back on the training pitch and work towards that.”
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