Robbie Neilson sets Hearts stars a challenge as boss singles out the one thing they must do better

Robbie Neilson reckons Hearts must get better at solving problems on the pitch. The Jambos maintained a flawless pre-season record with victory over Tranmere Rovers as they recovered from a poor first-half via goals from Barrie McKay and Liam Boyce.

Neilson's side were much improved after the interval and, overall, the manager is delighted with their work in preparation for a crack at the Europa League qualifiers. But he wants to see his Hearts players develop a knack for finding solutions on the pitch instead of being forced to regroup at half-time.

Neilson told the Edinburgh Evening News: “There's always stuff you want to improve on. 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.

"At half time we spoke about changing it, but we have to figure it out before that. It’s just about figuring out the game. It was like an away game against Motherwell, Ross County or St Johnstone. That’s the type of game it was and we need to learn how to cope with it.

“Pre-season has been very good so far. “I’m very pleased with it. We’ve had a poor 45 minutes, but hopefully that’s the long one for a long time.”