Neil Critchley is encouraged to see his Hearts team continue to find new ways to win football matches.
Hearts came from behind to beat St Mirren this evening – no easy feat against a team who are usually good at making life difficult for you when they take the lead.
The Jambos looked up against it after a below par first half in which Mikael Mandron fired them behind. But they rallied second half and James Wilson, Calem Nieuwenhof and Kenneth Vargas won them the points.
More than that, the result takes them above tonight’s opponents and into the top six for the first time this season before another pivotal game on Sunday – a derby against in-form Hibs.
Critchley, who this week revealed his biggest surprise about managing Hearts, didn’t think they produced one of their better performances tonight.
Critchley: Hearts not at their best
But the Englishman was delighted to see his side stick at it and come through a period of adversity in the game – like with the 2-1 win over St Johnstone at the weekend.
And despite not rating the performance all that much, he was still full of praise for his players.
Critchley told BBC Scotland: “It was a really tough game I thought. St Mirren are not an easy opponent to play against, particularly when they go 1-0 up.
“I didn’t think we were at our best but we’re finding ways to win games of football in different ways.
“Bit of fortune for the first goal but then two really good goals after that.
“I thought we defended well as a team, limited opportunities. To score three goals against St Mirren isn’t easy.
“I just think we weren’t clean and weren’t efficient in our play. Which didn’t suit the type of game we wanted.”
Pushed to try and put his finger on what was going wrong, he said: “I wouldn’t say its sloppiness, just not our usual selves on the ball. We spoke about it at half-time and I didn’t think we played great football in the second half.
“But moments went for us and what we did show is real grit and resilience and that sometimes is enough to win you football matches.”
‘Intelligent’ Hearts star Wilson
Wilson had all the composure and calmness in the world to slot away the equaliser, belying his 17 years of age.
His manager was loving the performance, adding: “Real composure, yeah. Jamesy plays the game really intelligently. We’ve asked him to play slightly different recently and he’s picked it up.
“He’s got such a feel for the game which is quite rare for a young boy of of his age. He knows where to be, how to press, when to press, where to run to. He is very good in the air, competes well.
“He took his goal magnificently well. Real composure to bring the ball down and slot it past the goalkeeper. That gave us real momentum in the game.”