'Not possible': Wouter Vrancken delivers message to Hearts after further analysis
Head coach wants Jambos to ‘show themselves’ in return match against Graz
A few days have passed since Hearts’ Champions League hopes took a crushing blow in Sturm Graz, but head coach Wouter Vrancken continues to lament his team’s Austrians opponents.
Sturm Graz won 4-0 at the Merkur Arena to give Hearts a huge mountain to climb in Tuesday’s second leg at Tynecastle, but the scoreline wasn’t a true reflection on proceedings.
Hearts controlled large parts of the match, missed two gilt-edged first-half chances through Landry Kabore and Alexandros Kyziridis - plus there was inadequate defending for all of Graz’s goals.
Vrancken got another chance to assess his squad during Friday’s 1-0 friendly victory away at Raith Rovers and afterwards reiterated his stance on events in Austria.
“Today I watched the second half again for the second or third time,” said Vrancken. “It's not possible that we give those moments away. Not because they outplayed us – that's the worst thing. We gave them those opportunities. We could have prevented them.
“Even when we conceded the second goal, it was still only the first leg. Like [midfielder] Blair Spittal said, we forgot some of the things we had worked on in training instead of just keeping our structure and building from there.
“That created chances for them. In the first half we created enough chances ourselves. Then, from two set-pieces, it broke the rhythm a little bit. But again, we have to do better in certain defensive moments. We have to make better decisions, both on the ball and off the ball.
Vrancken has only been in the door for a month and is still trying to implement his own style of play and philosophies.
“Like I said, we've only had three weeks of preparation,” added the Belgian. “Normally these are the things you analyse after a good friendly before moving on to the real stuff a few weeks later. Now it's the real stuff. We have to be ready for it, without excuses.
“Now we have to analyse it so that we can show ourselves on Tuesday.”