Jimmy Thelin sat down with the media on Friday lunchtime to preview our William Hill Premiership match with Hearts at Tynecaslte Park. RedTV subscribers can watch in full now.

“The Hibs game was an emotional rollercoaster, the last five minutes. This was a unique last part of the game that I experienced myself also but that’s football sometimes and sometimes it can happen. Of course there are always some reasons here and there. You can analyse a lot of things but the thing with football is it’s emotional, it’s concentration, it’s how you act as a team, it’s a lot of things. Sometimes these situations happen in games. It happens all over the world. Now it’s happened to us. To be fair the game maybe should’ve been a draw if you think about how it was but then you have 3-2 and there is just seconds left. It’s difficult to lose these two points and just get one. But you can’t stay there. You have to move on. It’s another game for us.

“It’s still the focus to try to create this identity, how we want to be in a game and it takes time. That is no different now from August, it’s the same. We need to try to be more stable. It’s going to be like that. We know if we don’t get the identity as clear as we want and just try to survive game by game, we will never build anything and it’s going to be difficult in the long term to achieve something year by year. We have to be brave also and sometimes there is going to be setbacks but we need to push and try to grow in some areas; how we build up the game, how we attack the opponent, how we defend and try to stay in this moment for longer. Even when it’s compact with games and it’s an intense period of the season, in this period it’s so important to have a clear identity, really, really clear.

“Sometimes maybe the mental capacity, the workload can be low because it’s natural because it’s so compact with games. Then you have to be stable in this period to achieve something in the long term. We still have some work to do there and that’s normal because it’s still the first season together. We have to keep moving.

“You can see it in different ways, sometimes the opponents are high and full of energy in the first half and it’s quite an open game. You can also look at it with different eyes that we are really strong over 90 minutes, that we can keep our intensity for a long period. Sometimes the opponents take the fight really hard in the first half, so the game is more blocked and maybe looks slower but sometimes it looks much sharper for us in the second half because we are a strong team and we don’t drop our levels so much. We try to increase the level. We also have good players that we can use in the squad to change and keep the intensity of the game. I rather see it that we are strong over 90 minutes and you also have to respect the opponents. They have a gameplan, good players, good squads and they also try to win the game. It’s always more of a closer game in the first half and usually more open in the second.

“Hearts have a good squad and they made some early changes in the game (against Cercle Brugge last night). I expect they will be ready for another game. We also have to be ready. They have good players, a good squad and a new coach with new ideas. I don’t think any game in this league is easy. Everybody has the strength and we have to try to keep this balance of our game and take the challenge.

“We are going to travel with 21 players for the game on Sunday. It’s still only Pape who will not be available. Everybody else is available.”