Wouter Vrancken looked back on Friday’s double-header against Kilmarnock, a 3-1 win at The Oriam, and a 2-1 defeat at Livingston and declared: “Overall, it was positive.”
Hearts’ new head coach told Hearts TV that his men played a really good first half against Kilmarnock displaying a lot of energy. His men also created a number of chances and scored good goals.
Against Livingston he used his first team members for up to 70 minutes and then he introduced younger members of the squad and he was pleased to see them in competitive action.
Vrancken saw his men create chances at Almondvale and he added: “Certainly, you want to win all the games, that is where the mentality has to be.”
The Belgian wants “efficiency” to be higher in converting chances into goals.
He added: “We have a lot of improvements to make, the goals we gave away (at Livingston) were too easy and we have to do better there, but there were a lot of good things to see and the dominance was good.”
The key factor currently is getting “minutes on the legs” of his players. They only played one game during their training camp in Spain, that was against St Mirren, and now he is having to manage some positions.
The team, however, are making steps and he is learning a lot about his squad having now watched them in action.
A big test will come on Friday when the Jambos entertain Spanish top fight outfit, Rayo Vallecano, by historical performance, the third best club in Madrid, and a side edged 1-0 by Crystal Palace in the final of the UEFA Europa Conference League final at the end of May.
Kick-off is at 19.45.
IN FOCUS: Wouter Vrancken will parade his Hearts team in front of Jambos fans for the first time on Friday when Rayo Vallecano visit Tynecastle. Picture Nigel Duncan
