Wouter Vrancken and Stephen Kingsley both believe the international break has been beneficial in terms of putting in the hard yards on the training pitch and further developing the Jambos’ style of play.
The duo spoke to the media ahead of tomorrow’s William Hill Premiership match at home to St Mirren, making a welcome return to Tynecastle Park after more than a month away from Gorgie.
An elongated international break has been put to good use, insist the Head Coach and the experienced defender, as the boys in maroon head into an exciting period of domestic and European football.
Wouter said; “I think it was a good thing, especially the volume (of training sessions), also a bit more in detail in the sessions.
“This could be good and I think we have to still improve in every part of the game, in every situation we can play.
“We have to be more dominant and the decision-making on the ball can be still better to find our game, what we want to see again. We made a lot of progress since the first training session already.
“The mentality has to be the same and it's still the same. We have to try to push ourselves more and try to progress even more than we did already and make the next steps towards what we want to see.
“St. Mirren made a really good start of the season there. It's a good side to play against and it's actually a really competitive game to play. From now it's only big games to come until the next break.
“So we have to make ourselves ready at top level, also in our head mentally and with our feet and quality. We need both to get results and starting on Saturday.”
Stephen said; “I think it (the break) came at a good time for everyone. Obviously, there were so many games in the first part of the season, so it was good to get a nice wee break and then get back in and get some training done as well without the game coming up, so you can really focus on things that the gaffer wanted to focus on and what we want to look at going forward.So it was good, it was time well spent.
“I think we'd be expecting to kick on now and really try and improve on things that we have done well and things that we've done not so well. There are areas that we know we need to get better at if we want to compete in European football, but if we want to come back at the weekends and get the victories at the weekend in the league. Lots to improve on, lots of aspects that we know that we've been working hard on at the training ground.
“And as I said, I think having that consistency and time on the pitch as the season progresses, I think it's only going to be stronger.”
Wouter and Stephen’s press conference can be watched in full on Hearts TV by clicking here.
