Craig Levein: Hearts have regained mojo after win at Kilmarnock

Impressive goals by Sean Clare and Steven Naismith secured a 2-1 victory to propel the Edinburgh club within a point of Aberdeen in the Premiership table.

Manager Levein now wants the momentum to continue after seeing his team win at Rugby Park, which he acknowledged is one of the most challenging venues in the country.

“I feel we have our mojo back. Hopefully we can keep it going,” said Levein, mindful that Hearts endured a run of one win in ten games in the lead-up to Christmas.

“Winning pleases me most. It’s hard to get points at Kilmarnock. It was a hard-fought, competitive game of cat-and-mouse for most of the match. A couple of moments of real quality won us the game.”

Arnaud Djoum’s intelligent midfield play created the chance for Clare, and a clever set-piece gave Jake Mulraney the chance to cross for Naismith to put Hearts 2-0 ahead on 43 minutes. Jordan Jones reduced the deficit from the penalty spot two minutes later, and Hearts defended vigorously throughout the second half to see the game out.

“Arnaud Djoum’s play leading up to his pass to Sean Clare, and then the execution of the set-piece: those two things were the difference between the teams,” said Levein.

“Austin MacPhee [Hearts assistant] works really hard on set-pieces and everything about it fell into place. The fact Steven was on the end of it made me feel we had a chance to score.”

Reflecting on that pre-Christmas sequence, Levein recalled: “There was a lot of soul-searching done to find a way of winning games. It’s easy to make excuses and say we were missing players. We are getting better as our players come back, so that’s an indication that it was a major part of the problem.”

The Premiership table shows Hearts are firm challengers after falling from the summit due to mounting injuries during the autumn.

“I think it makes it better for Scottish football that there are so many teams who have a chance to finish at the top of the league,” said Levein. “We have a lot of work to do to get back in real contention.

“We will have Uche Ikpeazu back by next Sunday [the Scottish Cup tie against Auchinleck Talbot] and Peter Haring will either be ready for that game or the one after. That will be everybody fit so I will look forward to that.”

Steve Clarke, the Kilmarnock manager, was unimpressed by referee Steven McLean’s performance. “Fair play to Hearts, they were clever, but there were so many fouls in the game,” said Clarke. “If you bring out the yellow cards at the start rather than the end, it allows your creative players to play. It’s a disappointing result but our performance was really good. Hearts came here to make it difficult for us and we fell asleep for the first goal. It is difficult when you have three big lumps defending their goal.”