Neil Critchley hails Jamie McCart for bringing ‘real presence’ to Hearts defence

Neil Critchley praised Jamie McCart for bringing “real presence” to Hearts’ defence since his arrival from Rotherham earlier this month.

The former St Johnstone centre-back, who had already appeared in three away matches against Dundee United, Aberdeen and Brechin, marked his home debut with a headed goal in Saturday’s 3-2 win over Kilmarnock.

New striker Elton Kabangu also notched on his first Tynecastle outing, while Jorge Grant got what proved to be the decisive goal as Bobby Wales and Fraser Murray replied for Killie.

“Jamie’s been a real presence for us at the back,” said head coach Critchley. “Kilmarnock ask a lot of questions of you with the way they play and you have to stand up to that physical threat, and he did that with lots of headers and clearances.

“It’s an added bonus that he can attack the ball and score at the other end. You want your defenders to chip in with a few goals a season from set-pieces and he’s done that.

“For Jamie and Elton to score, two new signings at home in front of the supporters, that’s a positive as well.”

Hearts’ two other January signings, defender Michael Steinwender and midfielder Sander Kartum, were not involved against Killie as they have not played for the best part of two months as a result of the winter breaks in Sweden and Norway respectively.

Critchley has not decided if they will play a part at Dundee next Sunday as they bid to extend their six-game unbeaten run and close in on a top-six berth.

“We just have to get the balance right of the appropriate amount of training and game time because they’re off the back of four to six weeks of downtime, their off-season, because their season finishes at the end of November, early December,” said Critchley. “It’s like our players having a summer break and coming back for the first day of pre-season.

“We want to see them on the pitch as quickly as possible, but we’ve also got to make sure that when they are ready, they’re in good physical condition to give their best and show what they’re about, because they’re two good players.”

Killie boss Derek McInnes gave a debut to Calvin Ramsay but substituted the on-loan Liverpool right-back at half-time as he was wary of the pressure being exerted upon him by marauding Hearts left-back James Penrice, whom he compared to Liverpool and Scotland man Andy Robertson.

“We’d spoken about how he didn’t have probably 90 minutes in him anyway,” said McInnes. “And Penrice is like a raiding full-back. He reminds me of a young Andy Robertson. I think the boy’s doing so well and I think he’s got a chance to go again (and get another move).

“Hearts will be hoping he stays and hangs about for a while, but I think he’s so influential in Hearts’ performances.

“We actually thought there would be two of them running up and down against each other, I was hoping Calvin could go and have an influence going that way against them. But we felt we wanted to do a wee bit more and get another wide player on.

“We knew Calvin wasn’t going to play 90 minutes. And I just felt it was the right time to make the change rather than start the second half. He did absolutely fine bearing in mind he’s not played a lot of football for a long time.”