As the midfielder gets ready to play against his former team, Hearts manager Steven Naismith has words on Connor Smith’s signing with St Johnstone.

After moving to St Johnstone in January, Connor Smith has received support from Steven Naismith to “kick right on.”

Last month, the 22-year-old signed an 18-month contract at McDiarmid Park, leaving his boyhood club, Hearts.

Smith is getting ready to play his former team on Wednesday night after making his debut against Motherwell quickly and earning his first start in Saturday’s pivotal victory over Ross County.

According to Jambos manager Naismith, the young player will be excited at the chance to prove himself against his previous Tynecastle employers.

And although Naismith maintains that Smith might have continued playing in Gorgie, he is certain that the time had come for the offensive midfielder to make a change in order to advance his career.

“Connor enters the game and rubs his hands because he sees this as an opportunity,” the man remarked.

However, my friendship with Connor was fantastic. His movements reveal more about him as a person.

We could have told Connor to stay here, in our opinion. That isn’t making Connor better.

“Sure, it could be beneficial for him to identify as a Hearts player, but as a young player, he needs to move elsewhere.

Conversations

He’s a first-team player with genuine talent, and I believe he will start playing straight away. That was the nature of our conversations.

Even while leaving a club you’ve grown to love could be difficult at times, in three, four, or five years he’ll look back and say, “That was the best thing I did, without a doubt.”

We are aware of his skill, so we must be aware that he poses a threat to them. Since I’ve collaborated with him frequently over the past few years, I can attest to that.

In the meantime, Naismith is anticipating another “different” encounter versus Saints in their third meeting of the season, with his club flying high in third place in the Premiership.

On the first day of the campaign in Perth back in August, Hearts won the first meeting 2-0.

In November, they easily won their final meeting, 1-0, less than three weeks after Craig Levein was appointed manager of McDiarmid Park.

However, Naismith believes the Jambos will once more go up against a St Johnstone club that has changed.

“They’ve done a decent bit of work in January, so it’ll be different,” he continued.

And they’ve made a lot of recent changes to both the technology they use and their actual gameplay style.

“It might be different against us. We know roughly how they will play.

We are aware that they will make threats, and we know who to stop them and how.

“And how we’re going to screw them over after that.”

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