Tynecastle club visit Kilmarnock in the Premiership on Saturday night

Calvin Miller’s omission from Sebastien Pocognoli’s first Scotland squad surprised a few people at Hearts. Not least Wouter Vrancken, the club’s head coach. Miller has enjoyed a strong start to life at Tynecastle Park, scoring four goals in 14 appearances since arriving from Falkirk. Those numbers were not sufficient to earn him a maiden international call-up, however.

While Hearts team-mates James Wilson and Josh McPake did earn recognition from Pocognoli for forthcoming UEFA Nations League ties, Miller must wait for now. Vrancken admitted he would have selected the winger first had he been in charge of Scotland. “I was disappointed,” he said. “But I talked with Calvin and he was like: ‘The only thing I have to do is keep going and showing it on the pitch as much as possible.’ So that's the right reaction. When I look at my squad, the first name I would take in the Scotland squad would be Calvin. But it’s not for me decide, others will decide. It's a motivation maybe to get to the next selection.”

Vrancken gave a ringing endorsement of Miller when asked why he values the 28-year-old so highly. “He is stable. He has no ups and downs,” explained the Belgian. “During the whole season, he's pretty stable in what he does, out of possession as well as in possession. You can count on him every moment of every game. He played for a long time with almost the most minutes, especially as an offensive player. So it means that we trust him very much in what he does and what he does for the team. So, yeah, all those things, actually - the stability of him and his performance.”

Pocognoli and Vrancken are former team-mates and were coaching colleagues at Genk but the new Scotland coach has not explained his decision. “No, I didn't hear from him yet after the [squad announcement]. I don't know if he can answer me,” smiled Vrancken. “Like I said, he's the manager of Scotland, so he has to make the decisions. It's his choice, and hopefully he does well with the choices he makes.”

Hearts are preparing to face Kilmarnock on Saturday after the Rugby Park side beat Hibs at Easter Road on Tuesday night. That result prompted the Hibs board to sack manager David Gray. Vrancken has sympathy. “Yeah, for sure,” he commented. “I know how hard it is these days to do the job, especially with everything around now - social media and the pressure, what's on the position, but also on the clubs. It’s always sad to see a colleague losing his job so I am sympathetic, for sure.”

Vrancken is more focused on helping his own team recover from their midweek loss at Falkirk. He is confident there is sufficient resilience in the camp. “I think it's just good to see. Every away game is difficult everywhere, especially in Scotland. It's going to be a tough game, that's for sure,” he said. “On the other hand, when you want to perform and play for the spots that we want to play, top of the league, as high as possible, then you have to step over those emotions of the next game and you have to be ready again. You have to just be ready for the next game, step up and show yourself again. This is a good moment to show these things.”

Hearts have not won a league fixture outside Edinburgh since January, which Vrancken was surprised to hear. He doesn’t think it will pray on players’ minds. “I don't know because that’s the first I hear about it, and it's not that players tell me those things. I don't think it's an item in the group, for example. Let's try to break that stat because stats are just there to be broken. So let's break this on Saturday.”

More than 3,350 Hearts supporters will travel to Rugby Park for a game live on Premier Sports. Vrancken admitted he is overwhelmed by the weekly backing his team received. “It's amazing,” he said. “I’ve never had it before in my career that there are so many fans there and the support is so big. They probably will be loud again, so at moments it will feel like a home game, for sure. This is an extra support for the players, an extra push for the players, and to get over the setback of last week and show the fans that we are back again.”