Lawrence Shankland could barely speak a word in the dressing room after Hearts’ disappointing 2-0 defeat away to Cercle Brugge on Thursday.
The Hearts captain is going through one of the most surprising goal droughts Scottish football has probably ever seen.
He had the chance from 12 yards against Cercle to draw Hearts level at 1-1 and register his first goal since the end of September.
But he blazed the penalty high into the stand housing over 3,000 Hearts supporters, who proceeded to verbally abuse their once beloved goal machine.
Shankland scored 24 league goals last season, six more than his nearest rival Matt O’Riley. But across 2024/25 so far, he’s had 38 shots inside the box and incredibly, has finished only one of those.
Retaining his Premiership golden boot seems utterly improbable at the moment – but Hearts veteran Craig Gordon is in a different school of thought.
Craig Gordon gives Shankland hope
The 42-year-old explained that Shankland is only four goals behind the league’s current joint top scorers and with that, the striker’s season if far from a write-off.
Gordon said: “Lawrence never spoke to anybody (after the Cercle loss). He’s pretty distraught, to be honest. He’s our top player. Is there anything I can say to him? Yeah.
“Whether you’re a captain or not and you are going through something like that, it’s a lonely place at times. You just don’t feel that anything you do is going right.
“I can tell him as much as he wants. It’s going to turn out that he’ll start scoring goals. He’s only four behind the league’s top goalscorers – the top scorers are only on five.
“He’s still got the rest of the season to try to be top scorer. He’s not that far behind – a hat-trick in one game and he’s right back in it.
“If there’s one thing to look at, hopefully he can look at that and build towards trying to be that guy again.
“He’s hurting more than anybody. I really feel sorry for him. He’s still trying his best. He’s trying to do the things he did last season and before.
“It’s just not coming off at the moment. He just needs that bit of confidence. I’ve seen it in training. I’ve seen him have some great training sessions over the last few weeks, the last months.
“It’s just not happened for him out on the pitch. But it’s still there. He has to keep believing in that and we certainly believe in him. The sooner he gets that goal, the better.
“I didn’t even watch the penalty. I was just hoping that would be the one that would go in and give him that little bit of confidence.
“I know the rest of the boys love him and that we’re there to pick him up when he’s going through this bad spell. He’ll be back scoring goals, whether it’s Sunday or further down the line. It will happen.”
Gordon on Hearts facing Aberdeen
Nobody at the start of the season would have envisaged Hearts being a mammoth 23 points behind Aberdeen after just 13 league games.
The two meet on Sunday having already met at Pittodrie as Aberdeen won 3-2. Hearts were 2-1 up in the game and Gordon feels that’s been an issue all season, letting points slip away.
He said: “Absolutely. I think we’ve said that after a lot of games. That’s been part of the problem.
“But yes, we played well up there. Again, we didn’t manage to come away with the victory that probably our play deserved.
“The home team has always done particularly well for whatever reason in this fixture over recent years. We’re hoping that will continue this Sunday.”