Hearts boss Levein vows to fix poor start to season

Posted Sunday, September 01, 2019 by PA

Hearts manager Craig Levein has vowed to continue in the dugout despite facing fresh calls to stand down from supporters.

Fans directed their anger towards the former Scotland boss after the Tynecastle outfit’s winless Ladbrokes Premiership run was extended to 11 games following Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Hamilton.

Sean Clare and Christophe Berra efforts were cancelled out by a George Oakley brace for the visitors.

Hearts remain second bottom of the top-flight after four games and are still searching for their first league win.

But Levein is adamant that he can oversee an upturn in the team’s fortunes.

He said: “Listen, I understand there’s a sense of frustration with the supporters. I get that.

“I am not going to criticise them for voicing their opinion.

“But I believe I can fix this and get us up the table pretty quickly.

“I think we have players here more than capable of climbing the league table.

“The frustrating thing is we have scored two goals at home and normally when we do that we win.

“And I don’t say this very often but our defending wasn’t good enough. That’s the bit that hurts.

“The goals we lost were rubbish. If we lose a well worked goal I am quite comfortable saying it’s a good goal.

“But it was more errors on our part rather than good play by Hamilton and that’s the frustrating thing for me.”

Hamilton manager Brice Rice admits he was disappointed his team were unable to collect their first win at Tynecastle in 42 years.

He said: “I think anyone in the stadium could see we could have won that game with the chances we had – good chances.

“I’m delighted to get a point, maybe a bit disappointed not to get three points but that’s maybe me with my Hamilton hat. I thought the performance merited three points.

“I thought it was a great performance from us. I know we won’t get the credit because we’re Hamilton – I know where we are in the pecking order – but I’m delighted with the way we played.”