Hearts hero Colin Cameron fears his old side are heading for a play-off after making a balls-up of Saturday’s relegation crunch with Hamilton.
And he warns if they don’t grow a set then they could go down as one of the worst performing Jambos teams ever.
Daniel Stendel’s side remain bottom of the table after scraping a 2-2 draw at home to their nearest rivals Accies who had to play 70 minutes of the match with 10 men.
The German has one point less in his 11 matches in charge than Craig Levein did in the first 11 games of the season before he was axed.
Cameron is as surprised as anyone to witness the current predicament particularly after what should have been a morale-boosting win against Rangers three weeks ago.
But with just 11 league matches to go he says every game between now and the end of the season has to be played as if it’s against the Old Firm.
And he reckons the Jambos’ safety is dependent on Steven Naismith and Michael Smith remaining fit.
Cameron, who won the Scottish Cup during a 200-match Tynecastle career, said: “Of course it’s a surprise to see where Hearts are because they’re a massive club.
“But they are there for a reason – they’ve not been consistent enough.
“They are running out of games. There’s no point saying, ‘We’ve always got next week’.
“It’s about the here and now and they have to play every game as if it’s their last game. They need results and they need them fast.
“They proved they can beat Rangers in a one-off game so they have to approach these remaining ones the same way if Hearts are going to accrue enough points to stay in the Premiership.
“I don’t think they will finish bottom but it might be a case of having to go through the play-offs to survive.
“And that would be the ultimate test.
“A lot of it is just having big enough balls to say, ‘Look we have got ourselves in this position, we need to rally together to get out of it’.
“It’s 11 cup finals now and about taking responsibility.”
Hearts players were left on their knees after failing to put away Hamilton in Saturday’s draw. It could have been even worse as Accies raced into a 2-0 lead before having Jamie Hamilton sent off after 21 minutes.
Stendel told his players to improve their body language afterwards and show the fans they are fighting for their lives.
And Cameron agrees. He said: “Even though they were two down they will still see a draw as a missed opportunity because of the way the game panned out.
“They’ve got the players to get themselves out of it. They have to be resilient. Steven Naismith is crucial to them.”
