Craig Gordon explains facing furious Hearts fans after defeat at St Mirren
A posse of Hearts players gathered near the centre circle inside Paisley's SMiSA Stadium. Craig Gordon was in the middle, hands on hips, observing the fury and digesting the scene. In front of him, the away end of the ground housed hundreds of angry Jambos following their club's eighth successive defeat. They were not shy in unloading their anger.
Full-time on Saturday was not a pretty sight with Hearts' malaise showing no sign of abating. Gordon has seen and done it all in an illustrious career, but being bottom of the Premiership with his childhood club is clearly a low point. Trying to acknowledge fans' commitment as they vented all manner of rage left the veteran goalkeeper feeling understandably awkward.
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"Yeah, I just took it in, stood and watched. You can see the frustrations," he admitted. "They don't want us to go over there and clap them. They want us to win football matches. I was just watching it and seeing the frustration that they have and we share as well. We're trying to put things right. I believe in absolutely everybody at the club that we can do that. Now it's just up to us to work even harder to double down and make sure that we're winning the next one because this can't keep going on. We need to change it and as a group of players it needs to happen now."
Change came on Sunday when head coach Steven Naismith was relieved of his duties alongside assistants Frankie McAvoy and Gordon Forrest. They paid the price for a run of eight successive defeats, and just one win in the last 15 competitive outings. Like in so many of those matches, suspect defending again cost Hearts at the weekend as St Mirren scored both goals in their 2-1 win from set-plays.
Richard Taylor's header from Mark O'Hara's corner deflected off his visiting namesake Gerald for the opener, then Alex Gogic's free-kick was glanced on by Killian Phillips for Toyusi Olusanya to score in behind a hesitant Hearts defence. In between, an attacking set-piece brought the visitors level when Craig Halkett glanced Blair Spittal's corner into the home net.
"I thought we prepared well this week," said Gordon, speaking before the managerial change. "We came with a good game plan, we started the game well and went behind again and made it difficult for ourselves. We got a good goal back from a well-worked corner ourselves and then go behind again. We always seem to be chasing the game. We need to get ourselves in front and give ourselves that opportunity to get the confidence back and stop chasing games.
"It's never easy when you're on a run like what we're on. We feel as if we're giving everything, it's just not clicking. The confidence maybe isn't where it could be if we're winning games. We're desperate to try and put that right. We go to Paisley, we have a chance within 20 seconds and if that goes in then maybe we go on and win the game. We're just searching for that little bit of luck, something to go for us, get our noses in front. I'm still sure that once we do that we'll get better."
Fans chanting against Naismith on Saturday was not missed by the players on the field. "We obviously heard it. Hearts is a club that is always better when everybody is sticking together," said Gordon. "I know they're not happy right now but that is when we need everybody together and to pull in the same direction. If we can get that, then it gives us that extra edge. When things are not going well we're probably one of the better teams at pulling ourselves apart.
"It's down to us to stick together. The players definitely will. We'll come together. We'll put another hard week in training and we go back to Tynecastle. We've only had a couple of games at Tynecastle this season. We've been on the road a lot. We need to go back there. The atmosphere is probably not going to be great there next week [against Ross County at Tynecastle] but we have to go out and put on a performance and go and score goals and start to turn us around.
"There's every chance one result can change it. That's the case. We've probably played worse at St Mirren and got something out of the game. We created a few chances. I thought we were a better team in the first-half. It didn't really go our way in the second half. We never created as much as we did in the first-half. We certainly came into the game and started the game brightly. There were a lot of positive things but we need to score goals. We need to take our opportunities when they do come along. In the second half, we didn't create as much when we started to chase the game."
Hearts' pre-season target to finish third in the Premiership again looks a tall order right now. However, Gordon insisted the club's goals are still realistic. "Yes, they're still achievable. It's going to take everybody in that squad to come together. Everybody's going to have to do their share of the workload now. We've got a lot of games coming up with the European games added in there. We're going to need absolutely everybody. People are going to have to come to the table, start producing and help us get up this league and also help us to compete in Europe as well."
