Wouter Vrancken explains what killed Hearts against Sturm Graz
Champions League defeat hits hard in Austria
Wouter Vrancken spoke openly after Hearts’ 4-0 Champions League capitulation against Sturm Graz in Austria and admitted his team only had themselves to blame. The Belgian’s competitive debut ended in a heavy defeat which all but eliminates Hearts from Europe’s premier club competition after the first leg.
The second qualifying round against Sturm was always likely to be a tough task against a team which has played European football for the last four seasons. Inside the Liebenauer Stadium, the hosts took an early lead through captain Jon Gorenc Stankovic. Recent signing Jeyland Mitchell, Luca Weinhandl and Jurgen Heil all scored inside a killer 14-minute period at the start of the second period.
Vrancken admitted his team did not defend well enough and also missed vital chances at the other end. With the score at 1-0, striker Landry Kabore and winger Alexandros Kyziridis failed to convert glaring opportunities inside the Sturm penalty area. Hearts paid the price when Graz increased the tempo with three quick goals after the interval. They now travel to Edinburgh for next week’s second leg, but realistically they can be very confident of progressing.
“It's a difficult game when you lose 4–0. In general, when you don't kill, you get killed,” admitted Vracnken. “When I see the first half, set-plays, it's difficult to accept such a goal in such a game, but the rest was good. We played good football, we created a lot of chances, but at this level, you have to score the goals, you have to finish the chances also. At half-time, I was really confident that we could still turn it around because of the first half we played.
Then they come out and you get again the same thing. And that messes up your whole game actually. And then we tried to do stuff that we normally don't want to do, like too many touches and stuff to do good. But at the same moment, you do bad and you get smacked like this. But when I see the game and analyse the game shortly after the game, the quality wasn't that much different. The score is too much.
“But yeah, this is what it is now. I think we pulled it on ourselves because of the set plays. Because otherwise, you could still play your game, go for it, like we did actually in the first half, sorry. After the second goal, you felt also the players were a little bit more nervous and we had to keep the speed in the game. Again, we created a good chance before they scored the second one. So yeah, in these moments, you have to take these moments.”
Sturm’s first two goals came from set-plays before the Austrians scored three times in quick succession early in the second period. “Especially the second goal, and then you take risks,” said Vrancken. “You don't have to take the risk, especially when you know there is a second leg. And then you get beaten, I think, two times on counter-attack. One time for sure, we lose the ball there in the midfield but then you lose the overview in this moment. Okay, then afterwards you get the overview back, but it's too late. Then again, you create possibilities, but you don't finish them.”
Vrancken only took charge of Hearts less than a month ago and is still trying to implement a new style of play. Asked what he learned about his new squad, he said: “What did I learn? I think we have to learn to stay emotionally stable when you get behind. It's very important that you keep the overview, that you do the good things. I was pretty sure that after the first half, when we came back in the game, we could just play like this and keep playing like this, creating these chances that we could score and then everything was possible. But again, the second goal killed this in your head as a player. It killed this vibe.”
Hearts used last season’s Player of the Year, Claudio Braga, in a deeper role in Austria. Kabore played as the main striker with Braga tucked in behind in Vrancken’s 4-2-3-1 formation. “Just because Claudio has a lot of impact on the game, and he did good against Rayo. Very good, actually,” was the Belgian’s explanation for that tactic. “We saw also with Amadou [Ba-Sy] not being ready, because he made two sprints and then he was - I don't think he's bad about this, because he comes from the forward - then he was tired, so this is the way.
“In midfield, it was just because the guys were ready to play and had the confidence to play there. I think Blair {Spittal] and Oisin [McEntee] didn't do it very bad, also creating a lot of space for the other ones, to take the space, to take the responsibility to come into the spaces. Sometimes we did really good, but other times it was too late, not showing the responsibility there. But again, we played. For me, what we played was not a bad game, but again, two set-pieces and you don't finish your chances, especially in the first half.”
Vrancken did not concede the tie ahead of the second leg at Tynecastle. “I think it's still sport, it's still football,” he added. “You cannot accept just and go over like a friendly, especially when it's at Tynecastle, when we go with the crowd behind us. We can finish it, we can be more efficient than we've been today, and in football everything is sport.”
Before then, Hearts play Raith Rovers in a friendly at Stark’s Park on Friday and the manager wants to use as many players as possible. “It's going to be that everybody gets the minutes, because you see also today that you need everybody. Some players are tired after 60, 70 minutes, you need your subs also in this game, so it's for sure to give them minutes. Like Amadou, for example, he needs the minutes to get the rhythm.”