'I'm disappointed' - Former Rangers and Scotland team-mates agree on Naismith's Hearts departure
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Steven Naismith’s departure from Hearts has come as a disappointment for two former team-mates - despite an admission the seven-game winless run meant a parting of ways was inevitable.
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Hide AdThe former Everton, Rangers and Scotland forward guided the Jam Tarts to a third placed finish in last season’s Premiership - but the opening weeks of the current campaign have been something of a disaster as Naismith’s former side now head into Saturday’s home clash with Ross County sat at the foot of the table. As well as failing to win any of their first seven league games, Hearts also suffered a Viaplay Cup defeat at Falkirk and were knocked out of the Europa League with a play-off round defeat against Viktoria Plzen. Last weekend’s 2-1 defeat at St Mirren proved to be the final straw for the Hearts board and Naismith’s departure was officially confirmed on Monday afternoon.
Former Rangers and Scotland full-back Alan Hutton admitted he felt sorry for his old Ibrox team-mate - but felt Naismith was let down by an inability to find some defensive solidity in his side over the opening weeks of the season.
He told Premier Sports ‘Scottish Football Social Club’: “I just feel like, we’ve spoken about it a lot, like Naisy was searching for something, formation, whether it was four at the back, three at the back. I thought they recruited well but it’s trying to get all these pieces put together and it’s just not quite worked out. But then you look at the goals and they’re really soft. That’s what has let him down at this moment in time.”
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Hide AdKevin Thomson, a former team-mate of Naismith’s at Rangers and Scotland, believes Naismith’s side were easy to play against after what he had felt had been a successful summer transfer window and admitted the ‘results driven business’ meant a departure was always likely.
He said: “I don’t think off the back of the results you can say it’s a surprise but, first and foremost, I’m disappointed for Naisy because as a top lad and an ex team-mate, you want to see him do well. I’m pretty sure even the people that weren’t Naisy’s biggest fans probably didn’t envisage the start to the season that we were going to have on the back of a successful season last season. Just to echo what Huts has said, I thought the recruitment was good apart from, in hindsight, quite a few were the same types. Huts speaks about Hearts being hard to play against, Yan Dhanda, Blair Spittal, good technical players but maybe not so good without the ball. But the big thing for me was keeping hold of Lawrence Shankland and they’ve managed to do that, to secure his services and have him in the squad moving forwards. To think they’re eight games on the bounce defeat is almost unquestionable but as I mentioned (I am) disappointed for Naisy - but it’s a results driven business.”
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