JON Daly believes Craig Wighton has finally come good at Hearts – because of supporters being banned from attending games due to the coronavirus pandemic.
And the former Tynecastle first team coach has backed Wighton to take advantage of the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final against Hibernian on Saturday night being played at a deserted Hampden.
The forward has struggled to establish himself and score goals at the capital club since joining from Dundee back in 2018 and spent the second half of last season on loan at part-time Arbroath.
However, the 23-year-old has netted four times this term and former Rangers and Dundee United striker reckons it is because he isn’t under any scrutiny from the stands.
“When Craig (Levein) signed Wighty he talked about him being one for the future,” said Daly.
“He played a lot of games at Dundee, but Craig brought him in having seen him as a kid and knowing the potential that was there. He got chucked into the team probably earlier than expected due to injuries.
“We all know he’s been heavily criticised for not producing the levels that he’s capable of. But he’s someone now who’s probably thriving on the current situation of not having to deal with fans.
“With no fans there probably means there’s less pressure on him to go out and perform. He’s certainly taken the opportunity to build his confidence, score goals and try to change the mind of a lot of people on him.”
Jon Daly was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel