Steelmen next for relieved Neilson

IF THERE was anyone more relieved than new Hearts boss Graham Rix when Rudi Skacel blasted home the Jambos' equaliser against Aberdeen, it was Robbie Neilson.

The men from Tynecastle had been desperate to mark their new boss's SPL baptism with a victory but were left with a mountain to climb after going behind in the first half.

The Gorgie right-back has owned up to the error which led to the goal and today he admitted he was delighted that his Pittodrie blunder didn't send his team crashing to defeat in Rix's first game in charge.

The visitors' rearguard was left exposed with 13 minutes on the clock after the full-back misjudged a tackle on Richie Byrne. Skipping past Neilson, the Dons star then released Scott Muirhead down the left and his cutback was dispatched beyond Craig Gordon, pictured below, by former Celt Jamie Smith.

Neilson, an ever present in the league this season, has been one of Hearts' most consistent performers in the current campaign.

Having accepted the blame for the opener at Pittodrie on Sunday, he breathed a sigh of relief that Hearts turned things around after the interval and avoided piling pressure on their new head coach, whose controversial appointment has seen the club grab all the headlines recently.

"I slid in and the guy took it by me. We were caught out by that and I know I should have stayed on my feet," he said. "These things happen, though. They got the break of the ball at the back post and Jamie Smith finished it well. I was hoping it wasn't going to cost the boss a defeat in his first game.

"It would have been great to get the win but I'm sure the manager would have been pleased with the spirit the boys showed in the second half."

Czech Republic internationalist Skacel was the player who saved Neilson's blushes, his deflected 64th-minute shot looping high over a helpless Ryan Esson in the Aberdeen goal.

The equaliser breathed new life into a Hearts team which had been strangely subdued in the first period and they could well have gone on to win the match.

Steven Pressley, Skacel and David Cesnauskis all had chances to secure a 12th league victory of the season but in the end the share of the spoils saw Rix's side slip two points behind Celtic at the top of the table.

Neilson insisted there was no sense of panic in the dressing room at seeing Gordon Strachan's Hoops open up such a gap, the focus now firmly on producing a better performance at Fir Park on Saturday.

"It was disappointing as we were looking to go to Pittodrie and win," said Neilson. "But we never started the match at all. They came out of the blocks well and we were second to every ball.

"In the second half I thought we came back into the game and could have sneaked the three points in the end.

"Trailing 1-0, we knew the next goal was going to be important and if we got it we knew we could put them under pressure.

"It came maybe a wee bit too late and overall I'd say we have to be disappointed at just getting a draw.

"Maybe a few seasons ago we'd have gone to Pittodrie and a draw would have been a good result but we've set our stall out for this season and to drop two points as we did was not what we wanted.

"We wanted to keep pressing Celtic in the league.

"That's them two points ahead of us now and we face a tough away trip to Motherwell again this weekend. But we're sitting second top of the SPL and have to take pride in that.

"It's not the end of the world that we've fallen behind them as it's a long season and we're not going to panic about it."

During the half-time break at Pittodrie, Rix told the players in no uncertain terms that they had under-performed although they were well aware of that themselves.

"We didn't play at all in the first half and Aberdeen dominated everywhere," said Neilson.

"The manager had a word with us at half-time and he got the best out of us in the second half. But we knew we hadn't performed. People had paid good money to come up and watch us - the support was fantastic on Sunday - and I'm glad we were able to show what we could do after the break."

With former boss George Burley having made no secret of the fact that he wanted to strengthen the right-back position, Neilson has been under pressure this season to keep producing the goods.

Sunday's slip apart, the defender has been in excellent form and the Senegalese internationalist Ibrahim Tall, who was brought in on the say-so of Vladimir Romanov, has yet to feature in a first-team match.

As the longest-serving player currently on the Tynecastle books - he signed in October 1996 - 25-year-old Neilson has grown immune to having to prove himself to new managers. Rix has already stated that the past counts for nothing and the onus is on the players to show what they can do. Clearly relishing this latest challenge, Neilson insists he's looking forward to demonstrating to his fourth manager in a year that he is the man for the right-back berth.

"Whenever anyone new comes in you're always looking to impress and it's no different this time," he said.

"He doesn't really know any of us so it's up to us to make an impression. Managers are always looking to bring players in. But I just have to concentrate on my own game and hopefully stay in the team."

While his brief managerial stints at Portsmouth and Oxford United did not go the way Rix had intended, the 48-year-old has a tremendous coaching pedigree, qualities which are already shining through on the training ground at the club's academy at Heriot-Watt University.

He may have been in the job barely a fortnight but Neilson says the squad is already responding to Rix's style.

"The manager is trying to instil a passing game on us and trying to get everyone confident on the ball," he said.

"He's not changed things that much and is just trying to get his ideas across to us. His coaching has been first class, he's well qualified and highly regarded inside football and I think that will benefit the players.

"You can see he has coached at the highest level and we're all enjoying being out on the training ground, which is the important thing.

"It is early days but hopefully we can keep improving. One thing's for sure, we certainly have to improve on Sunday's first-half display when we go to Motherwell this weekend otherwise we could have problems.

"They are always a tough proposition at Fir Park and we'll have to come out of the blocks a lot faster than we did at Pittodrie."

Taken from the Scotsman