Two Hearts players drop out ahead of Motherwell match as Steven Naismith backs VAR despite errors

The Tynecastle head coach remains convinced that the video system makes football better

Two players drop out of Hearts' squad ahead of Saturday's match with Motherwell at Tynecastle Park. Defender Craig Halkett is nursing a knee injury and forward Kyosuke Tagawa has concussion, although winger Yutaro Oda is expected to be available.

Halkett was substituted during the first half of last weekend's Scottish Cup tie at Airdrie and has undergone a scan to determine the extent of his knee injury. It is not thought to be a recurrence of the anterior cruciate ligament tear which sidelined him for a year during 2023.

Tagawa took a head knock during training at Riccarton in midweek and is now following concussion protocol. Oda also had concussion and missed last week's cup tie, however he is available again. Halkett must wait to discover the full extent of his issue but medical staff are hopeful he will not be absent long-term.

"We don’t know because he is still going through the process but he has had a scan and it looks like the detail of that is positive," explained Steven Naismith, the Hearts head coach. "But I think the whole thing around Halks’ injury is still wrapped around his main injury that he was out with. Players come back and people see them on the pitch and go: 'They’re back, they’re 100 per cent.' That’s not how it works.

"If your body hasn’t done something for nine months and then you’re asked to get back to elite level, there’s going to be dips within that recovery. This season is about getting him back out onto the pitch and getting as many minutes as he can, and having an impact on the team – which he already has.

"He will have to come out the team at some point. Whether it be for performance level, niggly injuries, how intense the schedule is. As long as he gets to pre-season and he has had a block out on the pitch and in training, that’s been a successful return.

"Halks drops out [for Saturday], Kyosuke drops out. He got a bang on the head during the week and is following concussion protocol which is six or seven days, so we’ll wait and see with that one and he won’t be in the squad. Other than that, I think everyone is fit and competition is still there, which is healthy."

Naismith also spoke up in support of VAR despite an independent assessment of the system identifying 13 errors from 378 reviews during matches in the second quarter of the league season. The Edinburgh club were involved in four of those, but Naismith is convinced football is better off with VAR.

"Ultimately, is it good for the game or is not? I think it's good and that's from my position as somebody who is associated with a team where the decisions impact us first-hand," he said. "I think we've been one of the teams that have been hit by the issues, if you like, more than most. But as the stats say, we are getting more decisions right than we did before.

"If we never won a cup on the back of a bad decision that VAR could have helped, that's not good for me. It impacts the value and entertainment for fans 100 per cent, but for me we need to get the better decisions. The bad the decisions haven't been VAR, it's the decision-making and the consistency level of that. When something is new, that's always going to happen.

"I think we need to look at that at times because some of the decisions have been really poor - or the outcome of the decisions have been really poor. So I think it's more about that but I think we also have to give it time, give it time to get better, how we maybe use it and that there might be a better set-up in some way.

"There's also been a lot of people's individual agendas suiting to throw mud at the system and the process when every club knows what the process is. 'Oh why is this not happening and why is the guy not saying into the earpiece?' All those comments are just fuelled by individual agenda. It's not fuelled by fact or understanding of what the process is for every decision. It takes a bit longer at times, yes, but until it's slick and we've got the experience, it's going to take time."

One of the errors raised was that Hearts midfielder Beni Baningime should have received a red card for a challenge on Aberdeen's Jamie McGrath at Pittodrie in December. He was given a yellow at the time. "If I'm honest I've not really looked back at it but I remember at the time I was a bit like 'offfttt'," admitted Naismith.

"I never thought too much but if he's sent off, I probably look back at it and go: 'Following the rules'. It's like the handball one. Is it handball or not? Yes it's subjective but at this moment in time, even if it's a yard away and your hand is out, they are giving it as a penalty. So it's a penalty. There are going to be subjective decisions in football because what you think is a foul and I don't is what it is."