Robbie Neilson knows Hearts need to get their house in order as their grip on third place is slipping.
The Tynecastle boss is concerned that his players did not win their personal battles in the 2-1 defeat at Kilmarnock which comes hard on he heels of a 3-0 loss at Pittodrie, despite opening the scoring through Lawrence Shankland and Killie having Rory MacKenzie sent off.
It allowed Aberdeen to narrow the gap to only one point from the third placed Edinburgh side and Neilson is adamant the cure for recent ills must come from within. He said: "We can talk about tactics, we'll do this and that, but it's player against player. If we look at the game today, if everyone looks individually and says 'did we play better, out muscle or out fight the player we were playing against' they would probably say no.
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"That shouldn't happen at Hearts and that's where we need to be ready for it next week because next week it will be the same, It will be a very difficult game against St Mirren, the same style of football, two big strikers, aggressive, and we will have to deal with that.
"Sometimes you go through these periods. It can happen quickly in football. We don't go forward quickly, we choose more of a negative pass than a positive pass, you have these periods.
"Look, you can talk the talk and say 'we are going to do this and we're going to talk about that, analyse all this stuff' but it's all nonsense. It's about turning up on a Saturday and winning football matches. We didn't do enough to do that.
"How do you get them to do that? I could sit here and talk about 'we're going to do this, this and this' but at the end of the day it is a lot of nonsense. It's about making sure we are ready for next week's game and that for me comes from everyone individually.
Neilson also responded the boo boys who hit out at the Hearts players following the loss.
Speaking to BBC Sportsound, Neilson said: "They have got every right to be angry, we're angry as well. Today, we didn't perform well enough.
"We have to keep fighting. This football club has fought through so many difficult periods. It's important we stick together and keep giving everything for the club."
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