Hearts: Steven Naismith challenges players to ‘achieve more’ | Football News

Hearts head coach Steven Naismith believes they can “achieve more” this season despite facing a “tougher challenge.”

The Jambos finished third last season, 12 points ahead of the rest, and secured a place in the group stages of the Europa League.

Naismith has added nine new players to his squad so far this summer, including Yan Dhanda and Blair Spittal, while so far holding on to striker Lawrence Shankland.

They start their new Scottish Premiership on August 3, live on Sky Sports, with the head coach expecting greater things from them.

“We’re at a better level and we’ve got a better understanding, but in terms of what we’ve achieved, that’s parked. We’ve done that, we’ve taken the reward and enjoyment from it but we want to do it again and again,” he told Sky Sports News.

“The challenge for us this season is much tougher because we’ve got European group stage football which carries more games, competition will be greater from the opposition because everyone improves the longer managers are there.

“The challenges are going to be there. We believe we can be more, we can do more and we can achieve more and that’s what we’ve got to aim for.

“We look at it as what can we improve on what things we done, not anything about the opposition.

“The outside perception is ‘get third, get European football’ but it’s more than that. The challenge is harder. We’ve got more games, we’ve got European football so achieving what we did last season would be more successful than last season.”

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