Craig Levein says Hearts lacking confidence & playing safe
- Published
Highlights: Hearts 0-0 Ross County
A lack of confidence and "playing safe" was Hearts' undoing in their goalless Scottish Premiership draw with Ross County, says manager Craig Levein.
The Tynecastle side were outplayed at home by their newly-promoted visitors, who missed a late penalty and spurned numerous chances.
Hearts are without a win in nine league games stretching back to last season.
"It seemed to be everything that they did was a mistake or fraught with some sort of error," Levein said.
"But when players get nervous sometimes they do tend to think 'I don't want to make a mistake so I'll play safe', but playing safe is not the answer to playing good football."
The home fans at Tynecastle booed at full time, with Hearts succumbing to a late defeat in their league opener against Aberdeen last week and failing to beat League One side East Fife in the League Cup group stage a fortnight ago.
Levein remains positive that performances will get "much better", but says the squad need to rediscover some belief.
"It's quite difficult to give players confidence so we'll just have to work on that on the training ground," he told BBC Scotland.
"I think the important thing, is when it is difficult, everybody has to work together and scrap and try and get a result, because it'll be results that turn things round."