Neil Critchley 'shocked' and 'stunned' as he criticises Hearts after Kilmarnock - plus Beni Baningime update

Neil Critchley admitted being “shocked” and “stunned” by the manner of Hearts’ 1-0 defeat against ten-man Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. Robbie Deas’ early red card handed the visitors a numerical advantage they failed to seize, losing to a Bruce Anderson penalty to remain bottom of the William Hill Premiership.

Critchley, the Tynecastle head coach, delivered an honest assessment of the 90 minutes. “I’m more than disappointed,” he said. “I was stunned by what I've just witnessed. I thought we started the game quite brightly, the first three minutes, then the sending off changes the course of the game. We got involved in the emotion of the game for the next ten minutes, with the crowd being involved, and we made poor decisions with the ball for that short period, and for the rest of the game with the ball.

“We made poor decisions off the ball as well, and one of them cost us a penalty, which ultimately lost us the game. But after that, we've had ample enough time to get back into the game, and we didn't produce anywhere near enough quality, intelligence, our decision-making was woeful. It's like we forgot where the goal was. And I can assure you the message was: ‘We need to ask questions of the defence.’

READ MORE: Report and player ratings from Kilmarnock 1-0 Hearts

“They were going to put men behind the ball, defend low. And when you defend low, there's not a lot of space behind, there's not a lot of space. They give you the space in front, and we just played in front of them, we played into their hands, and we didn't do anywhere near enough. It was as if we accepted what was happening on the pitch, and I was really shocked by what I saw.

“I've just said the same thing to the players. What I say to you, I say to the players, there'll never be a gap between what I say in the dressing room and here. I give them my honest feelings. They spoke in as a group as well when I left, and we need to make sure that we draw a line in the sand, and that level of performance can't happen again. That's why I'm shocked by it, because I've not seen that from this group.

“We've lost games, but even when we've lost, we've shown desire, hunger, we've gone right to the end, we've played with aggression and insensitivity, and we've shown none of that today, none of it. If you look at our level of performance after playing in Europe, in some tough games, we've produced good performances. Now, we've not always won, but today that was not a good performance at all. It was a million miles away from that. I sincerely hope that that's a one-off. If it isn't, then we'll have a problem. Only time will tell, and the next few performances will tell me a great deal.”

Hearts fans worried about seeing their team bottom of the league are correct to vent their frustration, according to Critchley. “Yes, and quite rightly they were angry and booing after the game. I totally understand that,” said the Englishman. “We have to accept it, because for this football club, that's not how we should play. Certain values at this football club should be in the embodiment of how we play all the time.

“It should be evident on the pitch. Certain characteristics should be consistent. And they weren't, so it's okay me saying certain things, but actions speak louder than words. You have to accept responsibility for where we are, and it's not good enough for this football club. Then we have to make sure we train in the right way, train with the right attitude, train in the right manner, which is limited because of the game schedule. But when we get on to the pitch, we have to do a damn sight better than what we've done today.”

Hearts coaching staff will assess Sunday’s match before starting preparations for Thursday’s decision UEFA Conference League tie against Petrocub at Tynecastle Park. “I always watch the games back. This one will be a difficult watch, but you have to develop the team and the players,” explained Critchley. “The only way you do that is by reflecting and evaluating your performance, and then how do we improve?

“My job is to help the players to improve, and the staff's job. We're in it together, we take collective responsibility. How they perform is down to me. So, I'll watch the game back. I've watched Petrocub a couple of times already. I shall continue to do that in the next 24-48 hours. We need to be ready for a huge game for this football club on Thursday night.”

Defender Frankie Kent missed the Kilmarnock match and may not play again this season, although midfielder Beni Baningime will return sooner. “It’s not good, to be honest, not good,” said Critchley when asked about Kent. “He's got a similar injury to Stephen Kingsley, but in his quad. Kingsley's in his hamstring. We're just speaking to a specialist to see if he's going to need surgery, but he's facing a significant amount of time out.

“We're hopeful that Beni will come back quicker. He had an injection early on in the week, just to settle a little bit of an issue in his knee down, but we're hopeful that will clear that up. He's done a little bit of running, and we're hopeful that that will settle the issue and he can return sooner.”

Critchley confirmed that Hearts will look to bring in reinforcements in January as a result of their injury problems. “Yes, with Kingsley and Frankie out, I think it would be quite obvious if you looked at our squad on paper, areas of the pitch that we need to strengthen. That [defence] would be an area that we'd look at, particularly with the injuries that we've got. That's something that we need to have conversations about - and we have been doing - and something that we need to look at in January.”