Gary Mackay: Huge decisions for Daniel Stendel as he must know who is up for Hearts' fight

I will be very interested to see Hearts’ team selections in the games coming up because I reckon Daniel Stendel has some big decisions to make.

The manager has again had a decent amount of time to work with the players and to get his methods across on the training pitch in the last couple of weeks – especially after Friday night’s match at St Mirren was called off.

There has been speculation that players aren’t playing for the Stendel but I’ve said previously in this column that the entire Hearts squad should be playing for their own personal pride right now.

Quite simply, nobody wants to be associated with a relegation in their career at any stage. That should be as big a motivating factor as anything.

The biggest thing for any player at a time like this is whether you are a good team-mate. That’s what the manager will want and that is what he will be looking at in training sessions and matches.

Good team-mates are people who look for the ball, look to help out the guy on the ball, and look to recover if their team loses possession. These guys always give their best to remedy any problem. They don’t take the selfish attitude and hide away when the going gets tough.

Players like Steven Naismith and Michael Smith will be looking for good team-mates who they can hang their hat on, not someone who is nine-out-of-ten one week and four-out-of-ten the next. Hearts need guys who are minimum seven-out-of-ten every week.

We haven’t had a consistent run where seven or eight players have been winning their individual battles on the field every week. That is what it comes down to.

That is why the club are sitting bottom of the league as we approach March. Mistakes happen, but who is there with the character to be big enough to go and correct any mistake rather than go into their shell?

That question will be answered over the next few weeks and our league fate might well depend on it.