Neil Critchley watched on as his Hearts side outplayed Bundesliga opposition for 45 minutes before conceding two second half goals to crash to defeat.
The Jambos were impressive against Heidenheim, particularly in the first half as they created a few good opportunities to score from a Tynecastle.
They didn’t manage to break the deadlock though and were made to rue that when their German visitors scored with two swift counter attacks after the break.
The performance was impressive despite a first Conference League defeat and we gave three Hearts players 8/10 in our ratings while fans swooned over the performance of one man.
The Jambos’ remaining Conference League games are against Cercle Brugge (A), Copenhagen (A) and Petrocub (H) as they look to pick up the points that would take them to the knockouts after two wins in their opening two games.
Critchley pleased with Hearts performance
it must have been a bitter pill to swallow but manager Neil Critchley was upbeat in his post-match interview and gave his Hearts players plenty of praise.
He insists there are plenty of positives to take from the performance – evidenced by supporters staying behind to clap the team off.
Critchley told TNT Sports: “We got punished by two real moments of quality. I’m disappointed with the result but not the performance. I thought we were excellent, particularly in the first half.
“You need to take your chances when you’re on top otherwise you run the risk of what happened happening. But I thought we went right to the end.
“Our intensity was good, our aggression was good, we played with real intent with and without the ball and I think you see that in the end when the supporters stayed behind and applauded the performance because sometimes you don’t get what you deserve.”
Critchley has Hearts work to do
Hearts have certainly had an uptick in results and performances since the Englishman took over.
He has only lost one league game and tonight was just his second defeat from six games in all competitions.
But it wasn’t the first time they’ve been unable to keep a strong performance going over 90 minutes.
The boss admits there are plenty of things he still needs to work on, which he hasn’t quite had the chance to do with constant midweek games since taking over.
He added: “There’s a number of things I want to focus on and there’s not a lot of time between the games to work on them.
“It’s hard to sustain against good quality opposition who can keep the ball. You have to pick your moments when you can press, when you can be together and compact and wait a little bit longer to win the ball back.
“I thought they were very good physically, particularly with long balls and holding the ball up and second balls. But other than a couple of opportunities on the break, Craig has had very little to do and we’ve had the best chances in the game.
“There’s loads of positives to take for us but we’ve had a harsh lesson of what top quality European football is about.”