Alex Cochrane's Aberdeen admission as Hearts defender reveals chat with manager

Alex Cochrane admits his performance in the recent loss to Aberdeen was his worst in a Hearts jersey as he looks to fight his way back into the starting XI for Saturday’s game with St Mirren.

The left-back has been excellent for the Tynecastle side for the majority of this season and will be in contention for the club’s player of the year at the upcoming awards, but he was hauled off after just 34 minutes of the encounter at Pittodrie with his side 3-0 down having looked completely out of sorts.

Cochrane revealed he had a chat with head coach Robbie Neilson in the aftermath of the defeat and he certainly didn’t stay in the doghouse for very long, coming on as a substitute as Hearts looked to haul back the deficit in last weekend’s 2-1 loss to Kilmarnock.

Having come on for Stephen Kingsley, Cochrane will fancy his chances of going back into the starting XI for the visit of the Buddies in Gorgie. It’s a huge game for the home side as failure to find victory could see them leapfrogged by Aberdeen in the race for third place.

Alex Cochrane after the defeat to Kilmarnock at Rugby Park as Hearts slumped to another defeat in this poor run. Picture: SNS

“We had a little conversation,” he said of his post-game dissection with Neilson, “but I’m my own critic and know myself performance against Aberdeen wasn’t good enough. I looked myself in the mirror and knew I needed to get my levels back up.

“As a footballer you know you’re going to have highs and lows and it’s about trying to get myself back up to where I was this season. Hopefully that can start again this weekend.

"[Getting subbed off in the first-half] can happen to anyone. We just have to take it in and learn from it.

“I knew on the day that performance-wise that was easily my worst performance since I’ve been here. But it’s about building on what I’ve done this season and moving forward this weekend.

“The lads were obviously disappointed as a collective. It’s just about getting back on the training pitch and trying to figure out how we can improve and what we’ve been good at all season.”

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