Head coach Neil Critchley admits his full focus is on Aberdeen ahead of Sunday’s trip to the granite city.
The men in maroon travel to Pittodrie on Sunday following two consecutive 1-0 victories and Critchley admits it's business as usual as the Jambos prepare for a huge William Hill Premiership encounter.
Speaking to the media at the pre-match press conference he said:
“You have your long term vision, speaking about that this morning to the staff. What's the end game? What do you want the team to look like in the future? What's the identity that I want to bring to Hearts in terms of the team that wants to represent us on the pitch and then you have to work backwards and you're not going to solve all those issues in one window.
“Players contracts determine what you can and can't do sometimes but I'm fully fixed on what we need to do right now, because again I'm under no illusions that if you don't win games of football, you don't get to the long term vision anyway, that doesn't happen.
"So fully focused on Aberdeen, fully focused on what we need to do in the short term. We have a strategy in place of what we want to do in this window but also looking towards the summer as well, you always have to plan ahead and we know where we want to go.
“I think every player is different and each individual is different. Some can block out the noise and concentrate on playing and training much easier than others, but I only speak to the players, other players only speak to me, if there's something that is relevant, otherwise it's just business as usual, we're here to train and prepare for a game, we can only control what we can control so honestly it doesn't worry me, it doesn't affect me, my full focus is on Aberdeen, watching them play, how do we prepare, how do we win that game and the rest of it is out of my hands.
“January is a notoriously difficult window anyway because anyone who is playing well or in somebody's team, they're not going to allow them to leave, so what we can do is as always try and strengthen the group, improve the group in the areas of the pitch that you want to and also identify players that you think can be good right now in the immediate because of the position and the situation we're in, but also that will benefit for us in the long term, that can be tricky, but we've done a couple of bits of business early which I'm very pleased about with a lot of work that's gone on behind the scenes, but I'd be amazed if the squad was still the same come the end of January.
The head coach is hopeful of welcoming back Beni Baningime after the midfielder missed last weekend’s trip to Tannadice through illness, whereas Elton Kabangu could be in line for a Hearts debut. Critchley also confirmed that Calem Nieuwenhof and Gerald Taylor continue their recovery from long-term spells on the sidelines.
“Beni has trained today, he was only ill, so he's trained the last couple of days, he's fine. Zander came back onto the pitch today, so hopefully he'll train tomorrow and be in contention. Calem Nieuwenhof is getting closer and Gerald Taylor is getting closer. Elton's obviously got his work permit finally so he will be available, other than that I think we're as we were leading into the United game.”
On Sunday's opponents, Critchley added:
“The fact that they've not won in 10 makes me very wary. I don't like them stats because eventually they will win at some point, because was it 10 straight wins at the start of the season in the league or went unbeaten for 11 or something like that? They've got good players, some of the results if you look at some of the games, they've just not had a little bit of the rub of the green in some places, those moments can go for you and go against you, we've seen that in some of our games. There's a fine line between winning and losing and they've just been on the wrong side of it a little bit, but I think it will change for them at some point, just hopefully not on Sunday.
“It’s so tight [in the league], so every point matters, every win matters. We've had a good lift, confidence from our last two games, keeping clean sheets is definitely a good basis to work from and we want that to continue. We're hopeful to go into Aberdeen, which we know will be a tough game, but we're in good form, we can go there confident. I don't think we've won there since 2016, so that's about time we change that.
You can watch Neil’s press conference in full on Hearts TV.
