In the aftermath of damaging defeats during his short reign as Hearts manager, Ian Cathro has at times stood accused of being less than forthright with his explanations of what has gone wrong, and appearing awkward in his dealings with the media. Winger Sam Nicholson had no such worries after this woeful loss to Partick Thistle at Firhill on Saturday. His message was clear, frank and unambiguous; Hearts were embarrassing.

It was hard to argue. A calamitous blunder by stand-in centre-half Lennard Sowah handed Thistle the initiative, Kris Doolan taking full advantage of his errant defensive header by showing a feather-light touch and composure to finish just six minutes in. They never looked back, and after Isma Goncalves had been sent off after picking up two ridiculous bookings, one for dissent after Hearts were awarded a free-kick and the other for a needless tackle on Christie Elliott, the result was never in doubt.

Liam Lindsay added a second just to make sure after exhibiting a first touch and finish that his teammate Doolan would have been proud of, and the home side took the three points that their accomplished performance deserved.

As for Hearts, it has been a week to forget, and they too took away exactly what they merited for their afternoon’s work.

No one who witnessed Nicholson’s address after the match could accuse him of not caring, but there was an open suggestion left hanging that perhaps there are others within their dressing room that just do not care enough.

“To be honest, it was embarrassing,” said Nicholson. “Nobody stood up to be counted for the team. Nobody, in my opinion, earned their jersey today.

“We’re too busy thinking we’re Hearts and they’re Partick Thistle. But it doesn’t work like that – you need to win battles. You need to show a bit of heart.

“It’s strange, but it is something we’ve got to try to put our finger on. We’ve got to change it – if we don’t it’s going to be a hard end to the season. We’ve got the players there to do it. But, if you want to sit there and play pretty football, and pass the ball about, at the end of the day, in Scotland, you still need to win your battles. You’ve got to earn the right to play, and we’ve not done that last two games.

“It’s about caring for the club, caring for the fans. Look at the number of fans we had here today – every single one of them was let down. Not one of them could sit there and pick anything good out of it. If you don’t care about that, and care about people’s reactions, and see the way the fans feel, then you’ve got something wrong with you in my opinion.

I’m not saying people don’t care. But people should be going out of their way to fight and do everything they can for the team.”

As Nicholson points out, Hearts were, as ever, backed by a large travelling support at Firhill despite the insipid defeat to arch-rivals Hibs just three days before. To be rewarded with yet another display lacking in any discernible plan and devoid of all but the faintest resistance to what Thistle were trying to achieve was a slap in the face for them, and they let their players know it.

Nicholson hopes that a period of introspection can help them unlock the reasons behind their dismal recent form so that they can start the process of working their way back into the good books of the supporters.

“It’s horrible, but at the same time, we can’t stand there and say, ‘why are they doing that?’ We deserved it,” said Nicholson. “There is no point in claiming we shouldn’t be getting booed by the fans. If you don’t deserve to get cheered, you’re not going to get cheered.

“Our new players have played for big teams. Hearts is a massive club. So I don’t think that – the new players – is an issue at all. But it is something we need to work on, in terms of finding out what is going wrong. I’m sure we’ll do that, and hopefully repay folk.”

From a Thistle perspective, it was their second home win by this scoreline in a week and the second time in a week that Kris Doolan has been among the goals.

The striker had a field day against the hapless Sowah and his chums, with his only disappointment being that he didn’t manage to chalk up his 100th goal for the club on an afternoon where he could easily have bagged the hat-trick that was required to do so.

“We’re even closer!” said Doolan. “I probably should have had another one or two, so I maybe should have hit the hundred today, but it wasn’t to be. I’ll take 98.

“I think they’ve obviously put a boy in there who is not a centre-half to do a job, and sometimes it’s a tough job when you’re moved out of position like that.

“I feel sorry for him that he’s obviously had to do that but it’s something we had to capitalise on and right from the start we targeted that.”