New Hearts boss Wouter Vrancken was full of praise for his Hearts side after they bagged their first win of the season in style, beating Dundee United 4-0 on Sunday.
Hearts have been criticised for their frailty at-the-back this season, but Sunday’s showing is certainly a step in the right direction. Especially for a side who will be aiming to go one better than they did last season.
Vrancken wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice with defensive options with Malachi Fagan-Walcott, Stephen Kingsley, Harry Milne, Craig Halkett and Stewart Findlay all unavailable for the match. This resulted in Calvin Miller filling in as a makeshift left-back for the afternoon.
The Belgian was delighted with Miller’s attacking performance, which even included getting on the scoresheet. Vrancken said: “I told him already, he doesn’t want to hear it, but we have found a new fullback I think.
“The guys were ready. They knew what to do and this is what we want to see. We cannot inly count on 11 players, especially with those amounts of games. It’s good to see that they are all ready and that they can pick up.
“I have to say from Cal, it was amazing. Sometimes you take a player out of his position to fill up some gaps… they don’t do it with all their heart. But when you see Calvin play today, it was amazing to see how much he bought into the game. He brought the extra and he was defensively solid. I’m really happy about his performance.”
Vrancken even refused to rule out Miller retaining his left-back role for Thursday night’s Europa League clash with Benfica. When speaking on Harry Milne’s fitness, he said: “I don’t know yet. We will not take a risk, of course with him. So we will have to manage those things. It’s not a big issue. I think it was a dead leg from the game before against Sturm Graz.
“It’s a minor injury, but we don’t want to take risks, especially with muscles.
“We don’t want to use him (Miller) as a long-term fullback. I think he has to work for sure on some points when you want to do it there. It was necessary now. We had to find a solution. We wanted also a lot of offensive impulses from the fullbacks. He gave it all and it was nice.”
Calvin Miller aside, Vrancken seemed delighted with his side’s performance as the run out 4-0 winners. He said: “I’m very happy. I think we played some good football. We showed some team spirit, team mentality. It was all in it. I’m just really happy for the players because they worked really hard already. They needed some good results, like we said already before a few times, to create some confidence. You saw that during the game, the confidence growing. You saw the nervousness on the ball was a little bit gone. They had to play, they had to use the spaces and some great goals.”
Hearts will look to carry this good form into Thursday night as they’re faced with no small task at Tynecastle against Benfica, trailing 6-1 from last week in Lisbon. It may be a case of managing minutes and aiming to win on the night. They then play host to Inverness in the League Cup on Sunday.