Hearts state high hopes for young debutant as Steven Naismith explains his Craig Gordon call

The homegrown 17-year-old – whose only previous outing came in the Scottish Cup win at Spartans in January – made his league debut when he came on in the 62nd minute of Saturday’s 3-0 home victory over Dundee. Naismith is confident Wilson will soon go on to enjoy the type of opportunities fellow academy graduates Macaulay Tait and Aidan Denholm have had this season.

“Young players will get opportunities here but they are not just going to get given opportunities for the sake of it,” Naismith said. “James has had to be patient, he’s been frustrated at times that he’s not had a chance and not been able to get in but I’ve lived it as a young player and I understand it. If he goes in too early his confidence can take a drop which then takes four months to get back to where he was. We need him to have a steady rise and going forward he will be a big player like Macaulay and Denholm this season.”

At the other end of the scale in terms of experience, Naismith used Saturday’s match – won through goals from Kenneth Vargas, Alan Forrest and Lawrence Shankland – to rotate between his two Scotland goalkeepers as Craig Gordon took over from regular number one Zander Clark. The 41-year-old helped the Jambos to their 16th league clean sheet of the season as he got some more game time in his quest to secure a place in Steve Clarke’s Euro 2024 squad this summer.

“I’ll pick the goalie that I feel should play,” said Naismith when asked about managing two senior goalkeepers. “Credit to them both. Both of them could be frustrated at times, both of them had to perform and they have. They both have a goal that they want to be at the Euros and they’ll do all they can. There will be hard decisions for a (Scotland squad) goalie because there are four in the mix. I speak to (Steve Clarke) a lot, but he’s not going to give much away at the moment and knowing him he’ll give it until the last moment and make the choice. He’s got a lot of decisions to make, not just the goalies but through the squad.”