Neil Critchley bemoans Hearts’ poor defending against Kilmarnock

Hearts head coach Neil Critchley described his team’s defending as “poor” after suffering the first defeat of his reign in a 2-1 loss to Kilmarnock.

The Jambos took the lead in the 44th minute through Alan Forrest following a commanding first-half display.

But the visitors responded with two goals in five minutes after the break through Matty Kennedy and Kyle Vassell.

The defeat left Hearts bottom of the William Hill Premiership after 11 games and Critchley, who oversaw his fourth match in the dugout after replacing Steven Naismith, admits improvements are needed in defence.

He said: “It’s very disappointing, we started the game really well and pushed Kilmarnock right back. We dominated the game, scored a really good goal to go 1-0 up.

“I felt we deserved that but then two really, really poor moments of defending cost us the game. It was a big learning curve for me tonight.”

Critchley was also disappointed with his team’s reaction to losing the winning goal in the 63rd minute as they struggled to penetrate in the final third.

He added: “The last half-hour of the game, after we went 2-1 down, we have to show more courage.

“But we lost our discipline on the ball and it became a little bit off-the-cuff style football.

“We didn’t do enough, Killie sat behind the ball but that’s when you need quality and we were lacking. We have to go to St Johnstone and show character as a group now.”

Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes, whose team climbed up to sixth, was delighted to see his side come good following a poor start to the game.

He said: “I thought we wasted the first half hour. The messaging from us was to try and come here and be a wee bit more forthright and impose ourselves in the game.

“I thought we were too passive, I thought Hearts were arriving at the edge of our box too often, too many corners, free-kicks going into our box and I thought we were playing with fire.

“At the break we tried to get the message across about what we wanted to try to do and I thought we were far better.”