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NAISMITH EAGER FOR FULL-TIME BOSS ROLE

By Gary Keown

STEVEN NAISMITH last night termed his seven games as interim boss of Hearts a success and told the Tynecastle board he believes he has shown he is ready to be a full-time manager.

An early goal from Yutaro Oda, cancelled out by Kevin Nisbet, earned the Gorgie club the 1-1 draw that secured fourth place in the table from rivals Hibs and secured European football for next season.

Naismith, who saw Alex Cochrane sent off in the first half, now faces talks on his future after taking over from Robbie Neilson and feels he has proved his worth as a coach in his own right.

‘I would say that I’m ready for management,’ he said. ‘This period was definitely a big indicator.

‘I have spoken to clubs in the past but you have this feeling of “am I ready?”. Every manager I’ve spoken to has said that you could coach for another ten years and you will never know when you’re ready, but what this has done is give me a taste of it.

‘I know I’m ready and I think I’ve shown that. These (post-split fixtures) were the five hardest games of the season. You are getting them at a time where the squad is really low and I’m proud of what we’ve done.

‘Conversations will now start to see if I’m the man to take Hearts forward or not.

‘For my seven games, I think it’s a success. For where Hearts want to be year on year, we need to compete for third and be in Europe and competing against the best teams in the league, and we need to be competing for silverware.

‘I mean competing consistently. We do need to win one and we need to get third place and we need to become a better team, and a bigger club and a better club. That’s the main drive.

‘I think the seven games have been a lot more eventful than a lot of interim managers would have in terms of leading a team.

‘The fight the boys have got is unbelievable. The understanding they’ve got of the game when we go to ten men, I think it was similar to the Celtic game. We managed to defend for our lives and we managed the game really well. It was really pleasing on the character side of things.

‘Hearts teams in the past have been labelled as being soft, that they don’t have enough fight, and I’ve been part of some of those teams.

‘St Mirren away, we showed character to come back (from 2-0 down). Today, we saw the game out. To go to Rangers and go for 96 minutes to get a result, when I was a player here these things very rarely happened. That part is turning but, if you want to play here, you need to have that.’

Striker Josh Ginnelly is out of contract this summer and has revealed that he would like to stay, although negotiations over a new deal are still dragging on.

‘It takes time,’ he said. ‘It’s not just a piece of paper. There’s so many little differences that need to get changed on my side or that the club wants to change.

‘So it’s just negotiating, but it’s closer than it was.

‘My heart is here, I enjoy it here, I enjoy the boys, I have a great relationship with everyone. Since the first day I came here, I have been shown the best of love.’

Football

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2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-28T07:00:00.0000000Z

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