Wednesday’s first-half performance against Tranmere Rovers highlighted just that. The manager turned things round with a stern half-time team talk in which he impressed upon his players the need for more purpose and urgency in possession.
He got the response he was looking for, helped perhaps by the introduction of Stephen Kinglsey, Jorge Grant and Alan Forrest from the bench as Hearts came back from 1-0 down to win 2-1 against the English League 2 side.
What he wants to do next is build into his team the wherewithal to recognise what isn’t working and what needs to change and then make the necessary adaptions on the pitch.
Better leadership and better game management, in essence. “There's always stuff you want to improve on,” Neilson told the Edinburgh Evening News. “The learning curve for us is that we have to figure games out when we are out there. “We can talk before about what we are going to do, but at times you have to adapt and I don't think we adapted well enough in the first half against Tranmere because we just kept doing the same thing and getting it wrong.