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Neilson demands more ahead of Zurich

By JOHN McGARRY

ROBBIE NEILSON warned his Hearts players that they will still need to improve upon their display against Dundee United if they are to see off FC Zurich. The Gorgie side eased to victory at Tynecastle to extend their unbeaten start to the Premiership season. Lawrence Shankland opened the scoring after 43 seconds but Hearts only made the points secure when Barrie McKay and Jorge Grant struck early in the second half. Steven Fletcher’s penalty got United on the scoresheet only for Josh Ginnelly to restore Hearts’ three-goal lead in stoppage time. Although his side ran out comfortable winners in the end, Neilson believes his players will need to produce a 90-minute performance if they are to return from Switzerland with their Europa League play-off hopes alive. ‘I was pleased with the result,’ he said. ‘We started the game really well but I thought, in the first half, we never played anywhere near the levels we normally play at. ‘We were trying to force the play, giving it away and not doing the things we’d spoken about previously. ‘We changed it at half-time and managed to get settled in the game and do what we’re good at. ‘We’re getting there. But I thought in the first half we were pretty poor. If we do that on Thursday night, we will be two or three goals down. We need to start the

game better.’ Zurich’s poor start to the season continued with a 1-1 draw away to Winterhur yesterday. The Swiss champions have now failed to register a win in their opening five games and are currently bottom of the table. Neilson, though, feels it would foolhardly to read too much into their opponents’ domestic results. ‘They are still Swiss champions, so we have to be respectful of that as well,’ added the Hearts boss. ‘They have not had a great start to the season but still have international players

and are the champions, so we need to make sure that we play our best game. ‘We want to bring something back to Tynecastle, whether that be a draw or a win or a close tie. We want to come here and be able to use this atmosphere and intensity to drive us forward and push us through. ‘But they have real quality so we need to make sure we negate that but we feel we have real threat in the attacking area and we believe we can go there and score.’ Yesterday’s result means that United have now lost 12 goals in eight days across their games with Livingston, AZ Alkmaar and Hearts. Deeply unimpressed by the way his players

applied themselves from the start, manager Jack Ross said: ‘Irrespective of what went previously, you have to start games better than that. ‘When one game begins, the other game is forgotten about. You have to give yourself a platform to win football matches and we didn’t do that by not doing the fundamentals

of the game in terms of matching runs, being physical and putting contact on people in the first 45 seconds, which is not great. ‘We were okay towards the end of the first half but no better than that. I don’t want to sugar-coat it because we should be better than “okay”.

‘We huffed and puffed a little bit and had some half-chances but overall we were nowhere near the level we should be at and need to be at.’ Despite a dismal week, Ross won’t look to tweak his transfer plans in the coming fortnight. ‘I’ve done this long enough now to learn not to be knee-jerk,’ he stressed. ‘We’ve had a chastening four days in particular. Prior to that, we’d had a relatively positive start. ‘Right now, it’s not about looking at needing players in, it’s more about looking at how I get more out of the players we have.’

The Verdict

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2022-08-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-08-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

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