Neil Critchley believes Hearts have progressed despite missing top six

Under-fire head coach Neil Critchley vowed that missing out on the top six of the William Hill Premiership this season would not define his Hearts team.

The Englishman took charge in October when the Edinburgh side were two points adrift at the foot of the table and managed to elevate them into the top six by the end of February.

After winning only one of their five matches before the split, however, they were pipped to a top-six spot by St Mirren on Saturday after being held to a grim 0-0 draw by a Motherwell side who also went into the pre-split showdown at Fir Park with a chance of making it into the top six.

Critchley acknowledged the anger from the away end on what he conceded was “a hugely disappointing day” but he stressed that “progress” has been made under his watch.

“We’re all frustrated, massively frustrated,” he said. “We wanted to come here and win. It’s not just on today.

“You’ve got to look at other performances and other games that we could have maybe got something from. Under normal circumstances, you’d probably say 0-0, clean sheet, a point away from home is okay, but not today. We weren’t good enough.

“I don’t think we played well enough, particularly the first half. I thought we improved second half, but then failed with our chances that we created.

“That’s on us as a group. It’s not any individual, it’s a collective issue, and that’s the reason why we haven’t collected the points that we needed.”

Hearts looked on course for the top six after defeating St Mirren 3-1 at the end of February but they have collected just four points from their last five matches.

“No, I don’t think there’s a lot gone wrong,” he said when asked why the form had dipped prior to the split.

“We’ve shown a lot of progress and this game can’t define us as a group or our season. It’s bitterly disappointing today but we have to get over it.

“We have a really big game next week (a Scottish Cup semi-final against Aberdeen) where we can show a positive response, and we’ve got five games where we need to win as many as possible.”

Well boss Michael Wimmer, appointed in February, was philosophical about not making the top six because ultimately a victory would not have been enough for his team to get there given that St Mirren defeated Ross County.

“To be honest, I have no reason to be disappointed because we could not influence the St Mirren result,” he said. “For us, it was not possible to achieve the top six. In the end, I can say it was in many periods a good performance from us.

“We have to improve the last third to create more chances, but I was happy because it was my first clean sheet here. I saw disappointed players in the dressing room which I can understand because they have been here for 33 games and for me it’s only seven games. For them, I feel a little bit sorry that they can’t get reward for their efforts.”