When the groups were drawn, one social media stats page suggested Hearts had been given the fifth-most difficult set of fixtures in the Conference League.<\/p>\n
From the opening 30 seconds, Hearts would soon learn that Nordsjaelland would pose a real threat. Prince Amoako Junior was in behind on the left, a position he occupied numerous times throughout the first-half.<\/p>\n
The Ghanaian teenager struck the goal frame before Hearts scored, and in the second-half it was the visitors who created more. <\/p>\n
Yet, Vrancken’s side were still gutted by the result. They felt they had done enough and some might argue they had.<\/p>\n
McEntee was outstanding in midfield, a position he hasn’t started in since July. Harry Milne looked back to his best at left-back. Malachi Fagan-Walcott and McCart seem to be forming a decent partnership at the back.<\/p>\n
But ultimately it’s two points dropped rather than a point won. <\/p>\n
And in a campaign of tough fixtures – Monaco are top of Ligue 1 and beat PSG recently; Trabzonspor boast ex-Liverpool legend Mo Salah among their number – it’s hard to see where Hearts accumulate the required tally.<\/p>\n
That’s before you take into account the run of games they have before the next international window.<\/p>\n
Celtic away, Trabzonspor away, Motherwell away, then Rangers at home – welcome back, Derek McInnes – before an Edinburgh derby League Cup semi-final at Hampden. Four days after that, they travel to Swiss champions FC Thun.<\/p>\n
In a period where confidence needs to be kept high, the concession of the late goal feels like a real sucker punch and Vrancken must rally the troops quickly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the groups were drawn, one social media stats page suggested Hearts had been given the fifth-most difficult…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-803803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-gb","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}