Wouter Vrancken has told summer signing Amadou Ba-Sy he needs far more from him if he is to be part of his Hearts team.
The Belgian was pleased to see his side survive a second-half scare as they defeated Inverness 6-2 with a late goal flurry to reach the last eight of the Premier Sports Cup.
The Jambos led at the break through Christian Borchgrevink’s header but Inverness turned the game on its head through goals from Ryan Duncan and Alfie Bavidge.
Hearts eventually pulled away, with Rogers Mato, Calvin Miller – with a double – James Wilson and Claudio Braga all on target.
But the manager felt compelled to substitute former Rouen forward Ba-Sy at half-time after being left exasperated with the Frenchman’s languid approach.
“More energy,” he said when asked why he opted to send on teenager Wilson in his place. “I think when you’re on the pitch especially, you have to show yourself.
“I expect that you show the energy in all moments of the game. I can understand if you’re having a bad day, for example, or that the touches are not good when you control the ball – that’s normal.
“This is part of football, part of being a human in sports. But you have to show every moment, for me, energy.
“I think he doesn’t do it on purpose. I think he’s one of those guys who have to adapt a little bit to the way we play and the league. Also coming from lower tier in France, so it’s not so easy, especially with a different style of play there.
“That’s an adaptation, so it will need time but we have to keep working on it. Or he has to keep working on it. And every moment of game time, he has to try to go for it.
“I’ll talk with him in the coming days and then we’ll see how he understands it and how he gets it and how he will cope with this. But this is important to understand it. And to see it also from yourself and to go in it and work on it.
“So I don’t want to hear excuses, for example, because we don’t live on excuses. And we’ll see. But again, as a staff, were very open to work with them and try to make them a better individual. And then the other side is the player. Take the responsibility for yourself, to want to get better.”
Inverness boss Scott Kellacher said: “For 82 minutes I thought we did really well and in the last 10 minutes – it’s 10 minutes I want to forget about if I’m being honest – we just sort of capitulated.
“They got the third and then they just went after it and that’s what they can do, especially here when the crowd get right behind them as well.”
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