Robbie Neilson insists his Hearts players will be better for the experience after a friendly thumping against Blackburn showed them where they're lacking.
The Jambos are in Marbella for a mid-season training camp and came up some way short against the English Championship outfit. They ran riot with three goals in the first half and one early in the second but Neilson refused to get down about the resounding defeat.
The Hearts boss, whose team face Almeria on Sunday before returning to Edinburgh to prepare for their Premiership return against Kilmarnock in two weeks' time, reckons it was more useful than an easy friendly win against lower-ranked opposition. And he's taking the positives from it - while demanding his players work on the negatives.
Neilson told Hearts TV: “We’re obviously disappointed to lose the game but I thought it was a good exercise for us. A really good work out.
“A lot of the players got 90 minutes and we’ve only had three training sessions and two games since coming back. I felt that they were a very good Championship teams. They start again in the league next Saturday, so they were quite a bit ahead of us physically.
“It would be easy for us to play against teams that we could turn over by four or five goals, but we wanted to play good teams and that’s what Blackburn are. It’s a chance for us to make mistakes and see where we can do better. That’s the most important thing. There were a lot of positives to take. Along with some negatives that we’ll polish up on.
“Almeria will be a tough game. They pass the ball very well, that allows us to see areas that are weaker within ourselves and that we can try and work on.”
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