Larry happy to get back into action

Published Date: 19 October 2009
By COLLEEN PATERSON
LARRY KINGSTON today insisted that he's happy to be back playing first-team football for Hearts – but revealed that he's still hoping to miss a further six weeks in a maroon jersey when Ghana take part in the African Cup of Nations.
The midfielder made his first appearance of the season at Pittodrie at the weekend, coming on as a second-half substitute for Suso, despite having featured for his country on several occasions in recent months.

Kingston, pictured below, who was fined a club record of £40,000 for an argument with Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo over his international appearances, was give a muted reception by the 1,200 Hearts fans who had travelled north for the match but afterwards insisted that it was up to him to change their minds about him.

The player stressed that he is fully committed to the Tynecastle side and that he wants to continue his career in Edinburgh in the long-term, but he also conceded that if he is called up by the Black Stars for the African Nations, he will honour it.

That could mean another absence of between five and six weeks and Kingston said: "There is one more World Cup qualifier to play and then we have the African Nations Cup, that is the important one. If I am called up I have to honour it.

"It normally takes five or six weeks. It is a very difficult time for me because I am working hard to get myself 100 per cent back in the team so it is a shame that the African Nations Cup is so close. I have to keep working hard and see what happens."

Kingston admitted that he has made mistakes but hopes that he and Laszlo can now put the incident behind them for the sake of the club and he added: "I never said that I was choosing my country over my club but every player's dream is to play for their national team.

"I just wanted them to allow me to play at club level and national team level as well.

"I have nothing against my club and I can't go against the people who pay my wages.

"The fine was very big for me but this is the club's decision and I cannot challenge it. I made a mistake, they were not happy about it and they fined me. They have a code of conduct and they have every right to do that.

"You are going to see the manager every day in training and in the dressing room so it is very difficult to have problems with him but everything is resolved and I am very happy at the moment.

"I am happy that he has accepted me again and I am building my confidence back.

"I have never played for a club for longer than two years before, I am very happy here, my family is happy here and I own a house here. I am happy to stay here."

Laszlo's side were more cohesive after Kingston's introduction but the Hearts manager insisted that the player still has a lot of hard work ahead of him. He said: "I gave Larry the chance at Pittodrie, he came on as a substitute, but he still has to do a bit more.

"I cannot treat him like a baby, he must do it on his own. So far it is not enough, but this is his first step and we have to make sure that he does not fall again."

Laszlo conceded that he had to be satisfied with a point, having seen both sides pass up a host of chances throughout the course of the 90 minutes.

Laszlo said: "If you don't score then you don't win. As a manager you work all week with the team on tactics but I think that the players must be scared. I cannot go out on the field and take their hands and show them how to put the ball in the net. They must do it themselves.

"But I think that we can be satisfied by a point because Aberdeen also had some very good chances and they were very dangerous from corners and set-pieces.

"In the last 20 minutes we had enough chances to win but you must also think about how the opponent played."

Indeed Hearts did have ample opportunity in the dying minutes, but they also had enough chances in the first half to win two games only to struggle yet again to find that killer touch in front of goal.

Their first opportunity came with just four minutes on the clock when Craig Thomson swung a corner into the box which found David Obua. He spun round to get the shot in only for it to take enough of a deflection to send it wide of Jamie Langfield's right-hand post.

The visitors carved Aberdeen open with a brilliant move in 19 minutes when skipper Michael Stewart picked out Suso and the little Spaniard ran from the half-way line to the edge of the box before stabbing the ball across to David Witteveen. He should have taken the shot on himself but instead tried to feed the ball into the path of Andy Driver, who was haring down the right, and it was cut off by a red jersey before it could reach the Englishman.

Hearts threatened again in 23 minutes when Thomson sent an inswinging corner deep into the box and it was Witteveen who got his head to it but could only send it inches wide of the keeper's right-hand post.

It was almost all Hearts but their pressure came without reward. They pushed forward again just before the half hour when Lee Wallace ran almost the length of the park to find Suso, who in turn laid the ball into the path of Witteveen.

He spotted Obua, who had raced up the left to support him but, as had been the case throughout, the Austrian forward's attempted cross never made it to its intended recipient.

Thomson then did well to break down the right and lay it off for Driver but, as the Hearts winger tried to cut into the box at the byline, he was forced off the ball after some clever play from Charlie Mulgrew.

And Hearts were made to pay for their missed chances five minutes from the half-time whistle when the Dons bagged the lead. It was a great move that led to the opening goal of the game, Mulgrew the instigator when he produced an inch-perfect ball for Michael Paton to run on to on the left-hand side of the box. His cross was tight to the goal-line and was palmed away by Janos Balogh but there was nothing the keeper could do to stop Lee Miller from heading his side in front from just outside the six-yard area.

After the break Balogh was called into action again as Aberdeen began to find their feet, tipping Fraser Fyvie's corner over the bar, just as it looked set to dip into the net.

The youngster caused chaos in the Hearts defence with a similar effort just a couple of minutes later, this time Balogh pushing the ball back out to the edge of the box where Pawlett was lurking. He looked a cert to double the Dons' advantage but instead sliced his shot well wide.

However, Hearts levelled in 63 minutes and it was no more than they deserved. After Duff had gifted possession to Obua, he found substitute Christian Nade, who got the better of Andrew Considine to stab the ball to his left and just a yard ahead of Driver, who gratefully latched on and drilled it home across the body of the diving Langfield.

Hearts almost had their point snatched away with 15 minutes to go when Fyvie's shot looked goalbound, only for Obua to somehow get in front of the ball and head it away almost on the goal line.

In the dying seconds Laryea Kingston saw his shot from a Craig Thomson corner clear the bar before David Obua got on the end of a Driver cross, only to send his header over when a goal had looked a cert. Dons boss Mark McGhee felt that his side had done enough to take all three points but was delighted to see Miller hitting his first league goal of the season.

He said: "I thought that it was a game we were going to win and a game I thought that we deserved to win. We made so many chances.

"It was good for Lee. He has deserved a goal and hopefully this will be the start of a sequence of four or five games that will bring him some goals.

"I think that being picked for Scotland was a tremendous boost for him and gave him some hope that people were still looking at him in that sense.

"I have tried to protect him because there is a collective responsibility for goals. Lee Miller has not been missing chances, he has just not been given them. But hopefully this is the start of the team being more productive in that area and, as a result, Lee being more productive too."

Taken from the Scotsman