Ian Cathro: Easter Road was as low as Hearts will go

Head coach Ian Cathro believes Hearts are improving

A run of three straight defeats started with the 3-1 Scottish Cup loss to Hibs, followed by Saturday’s 2-0 reverse at Partick Thistle and then Wednesday’s night’s 1-0 home setback against Ross County.

Cathro insists Hearts can never repeat their insipid display in the Edinburgh derby but is determined to lift confidence levels with no game this weekend. “When you hit rock bottom, which is basically what we did against Hibs, you need to recover from that,” he told the Evening News.

“Maybe we’re still in a phase of getting everybody back to the levels of confidence we had. That comes from good performances but, more importantly, results.

“We haven’t done that in the last two games so we need to stick together in dealing with this. Everyone together has to lift themselves to the point where we need to be and to get the results.”

The difficulties faced by the Tynecastle squad are well documented with only four wins in 15 games since Cathro replaced Robbie Neilson as head coach.

However, Cathro is convinced his team are showing some small signs of improvement. “It bottomed out at Easter Road. That was the darkest moment. It was a level of performance and a feeling on the pitch which was completely unacceptable,” he said.

“That’s why I made the comments I did at the time. That can never happen again at this football club.

“We certainly weren’t as poor at Partick.

“We had some issues and it was another unacceptable result for what our expectations are.

“Wednesday night was a better level of performance. Without dominating and having a massive amount of chances, it was a game we had control of.

“We were the stronger team in the game, then we make an error which leads to the goal. We also failed to finish at the other end.”