With Liam Boyce once again absent from the Hearts’ squad to face Dundee United, manager Robbie Neilson had a decision to make.
Should he go with the pace of Josh Ginnelly through the middle, or the physical presence of Armand Gnanduillet? He opted for the former and judging by the 5-2 scoreline in the Jambos’ favour, it appears he made the correct choice.
The 24-year-old’s pace caused the United defence all sorts of problems and Ginnelly, who revealed he used to play striker as an eight-year-old, explained he spent his Friday night watching and learning from clips of Hearts’ top scorer Liam Boyce.
“I knew I was going to play that role striker. On Friday night I was watching all of Boycey’s clips and just trying to take in everything I could. It worked quite well, but there’s still more we need to work on.
“Somebody just watching the game doesn’t pick up on the stuff Boycey does. His intelligence on the pitch is crazy. The movement he makes, he’s always occupying two players, staying out the eye-line of players, that’s why he scores so many goals.”
Although Ginnelly is happy to take his football advice, he laughed at the prospect of letting the Northern Irishman take charge of the dressing room music, before admitting he’d happily step aside to let Boyce return to the starting 11, highlighting his importance to the team.
“We came in together today. He was giving me little preps and things to do, and it worked today. I wanted my goal, but I’m happy with an assist and the result.
“But I can’t listen to his Irish music. He’s good, he’s probably my closest friend at the club. We just bounce off each other.
“I’d happily step aside for Boycey, he deserves it. He’s our main striker, he’s a brilliant player and we need him.”
When asked where Boyce ranks amongst the strikers he’s played with previously in his career, Ginnelly replied:
“Boycey is probably number one. From what I’ve seen, he’s got everything. Some people maybe see him as a target man or whatever, but the guy has got everything, he’s certainly top three without a doubt.”
Saturday’s three points ended Hearts’ minor form blip in fantastic fashion and Ginnelly has full belief in his teammates to maintain their performance levels and push Celtic and Rangers as much as they can.
“Without a doubt we can maintain it. If you see the players that we’ve got in there, everybody sees us once or twice a week, if you see it every day you’d understand, we’ve got so much in the changing room.
“Our main striker today is actually injured, so other people had to go into other slots, and we still beat a good side.
“It was a massive win. We’re Hearts, if we draw with someone it’s a bad thing. Apart from your Rangers and Celtics we should be beating teams, but it’s not that simple.
“We all sat down and spoke about turning these draws into wins, but I can guarantee there’ll be days in the season when we don’t play our best. Like the Aberdeen game. We were all frustrated because we could’ve done way more.
“People are all saying ‘Hearts are falling apart’ but that’s not the case. There’s going to be disappointing days, even Rangers and Celtic have their bad days, Celtic drew with Livingston last weekend, so their fans will be raging, but it’s just the way the game goes, you can’t win every game, it’s impossible.”
