HEARTS star Steven Naismith insists he knew age would be no barrier for Steven MacLean after developing an immediate rapport with the experienced marksman.
The summer capture of MacLean, 35, was met with a lukewarm reception from some Hearts supporters who felt the veteran’s best days were behind him following a magnificent six-year stint at St Johnstone.
However, he has made a mockery of that assessment in the opening weeks of the campaign, notching three times to help Craig Levein’s outfit reach the last-16 of the Betfred Cup before hammering Hamilton 4-1 in their Premiership curtain-raiser.
As well as illustrating an able eye for goal, MacLean’s bright movement and clever link-up play – particularly with the similarly crafty Naismith – has been outstanding.
And that is exactly what the Scotland international expected after admiring the attacker from afar.
“When he signed for Hearts I thought it was a very shrewd move by the manager from the start,” said Naismith.
“You have players performing well into their 30s now so his age was never going to be a major issue.
“From watching him, you could always see that he had that intelligence. He understands what his movement does for himself, but also for his team-mates. It is very easy to link up with someone like that and we are on the same wavelength.
“It’s just another one of those things that, over the next few weeks and months, will hopefully get better and better.”
As well as MacLean’s three goals, Naismith has found the net four times already, Uche Ikpeazu has three, while Peter Haring and Michael Smith have both notched twice for a Hearts side who have scored 17 times in just five games this term.
Naismith is delighted to see the strikes spread around after admitting Hearts were too reliant on Rangers-target Kyle Lafferty last term.
“The goals are coming from everywhere and that is something that had to improve,” continued Naismith.
“Last season we mainly relied on Kyle and that, for any squad, isn’t healthy.
“Of course you have your main striker that will score you goals, but you still need that variety of people chipping in from other areas. We’ve started off in the right way and, knowing that we’ve scored those goals and have quality players waiting in the wings, is a good feeling.”
While Levein's men have been rampant in recent weeks, they will be charged with stepping up in class when Brendan Rodgers’ double treble winners visit Tynecastle on Saturday.
Naismith acknowledges that Hearts face an onerous challenge, but has urged the capital club to take full advantage of any European hangover Celtic may have following their Champions League clash against AEK Athens tonight.
“It will be tough, they have been the benchmark over the past few years,” the former Rangers and Kilmarnock forward added. “However, we are moving forward as a squad and want to show we can compete with them.
“They have their mind set on Europe, which can be a tricky situation for them in terms of having two massive games and us sandwiched in between.
"From our side – as fans and players – we need to recognise that and start at a really good tempo and make it a tremendous atmosphere to push on.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here