Hearts starlet Harry Cochrane opens up on first-team struggles and trying to deal with pressure

The teenager broke through as a 16-year-old two seasons ago

Hearts starlet Harry Cochrane has opened up about his struggles at regaining his place in the team at Tynecastle.

The precocious teenager broke through at the club as a 16-year-old during the 2017/2018 campaign, playing 24 times.

The midfielder hit the headlines due to his composure on the ball, a willingness to get in possession and combative qualities. His big moment arrived when he scored and starred in a 4-0 win over Celtic to the end the Glasgow team’s 69-game unbeaten domestic record.

Harry Cochrane has struggled somewhat since making his Hearts breakthrough. Picture: SNS

In the last two seasons he has featured just eight times for the first-team due to a range of factors.

Last term he suffered a few injuries, while this campaign he spent time on loan at Dunfermline Athletic before being recalled by Daniel Stendel in January.

Cochrane, who turns 19 later this week, was pushing to get back involved before the season was postponed.

“When you start to play a few more games and you’ve done well in a few games you start to feel the pressure more because you’ve done well and there is an expectation on you to keep performing like that,” he told ex-Hibs midfielder Marvin Bartley in an interview on Instagram.

“When you are young it is hard to play like that every game and very few players can do it every single game.

“I was told by one of the coaches at Hearts that the second season is the hardest season to try and keep your place in the team and keep performing. I found that out very quickly because at the start of the season I wasn’t really playing. I had injuries, I had all sorts of things that weren’t going my way.

“When I wasn’t playing there was an expectation from me which there shouldn’t have been.”

He added: “You need to be on form as well if you are wanting to stay in the team and at the time after my injuries I wasn’t performing well enough to get in the team, and the same this season.”

‘Too much pressure on myself’

The summer of 2018 saw then Hearts boss Craig Levein overhaul the squad which included the arrival of five players who could play in the middle of the park, including Peter Haring and Olly Lee who formed a formidable partnership early on.

Cochrane admitted that he found it tough mentally, both in terms of not playing and the pressure he was putting on himself.

“When I was playing regularly it was probably because of the lack of midfielders,” he said. “I was one of the only ones they could put in. The next season we had to bring in more players, central midfielders anyway just for security.

“If anyone gets injured they have got me there to put in. Whereas the first season when I started playing there wasn’t much choice but to play me.

“It was hard mentally to try and motivate yourself to go in everyday and keep working as hard as you can to get back in the team.

“At 16 I was playing in the first-team and I needed to be pushing towards the first team, that was the hard part for me when I was training all week and thinking will I get a chance this week or will I not.

“Because of what I experienced the first season I was putting too much pressure on myself.

“Even in training I was trying to be the best. I was trying things I wouldn’t normally try in the first season I was playing. Trying to play World Cup balls when it is not my game.

“When I first went in and started training with the first team I was nervous, everything I did was keeping it safe and trying to not get shouted at. When I went into the games I thought there was no pressure.

“The second season I started trying too hard to be the best. I got pulled in at training one day, it was a bounce game. I was having an absolute howler. It was probably the worst day of training I’ve ever had.

“Austin MacPhee pulled me and said: ‘You don’t need to be the best in training every day. You don’t need to try so hard to prove you’re the best’.

“I was feeling all sorts of pressure when things weren’t going my way. It’s kind of hindered me.

“Right now, with no football, I’m trying to focus on building myself up.”