CHRISTIAN NADE admitted today that he began to question his own ability after failing to set the goalscoring charts alight for Hearts.
However, having a vital goal in yesterday's 2-0 victory over Hibs at Easter Road, he's already looking forward to adding more to his tally this season.
The big striker opened the scoring for the Jambos as they disposed of their bitter rivals in
the fifth round of the Homecoming Scottish Cup on their own patch.
But it was just his second of the season, his only other strike coming in a 1-0 win over Hamilton in the league at the beginning of November.
However, Nade believes that his derby goal can be the kick-start he needs and is hoping that it won't be long until he's celebrating more goals. Nade, who was joined on the scoresheet by young Gary Glen, said: "Last week, I had chances to score and I did not take them but yesterday I had chances and I did not miss, so I was very happy to score.
"I did not understand why the keeper came out. At the time, I did not really realise where he was, but I was just very happy to score.
"I know that I did not score many goals this season before this one so it has been very hard for me and I hope that it is not so long until I score another one.
"We did not feel more pressure. We know that we had not scored in a few games and that we had to start to score again and that is what we did. I started to ask myself questions because I missed a lot of chances over the last few games. Okay, we were creating them and I was in the right place but we were not scoring so that was hard for me.
"But we have continued to work hard in training and I scored against Hibs, so I am happy again and hoping that I score again in our next game."
Nade admitted that he is just happy to be involved in the Hearts starting line-up after being told to shed some weight in the summer, but also conceded that he would prefer to play in a 4-4-2 formation, rather than Csaba Laszlo's favoured 4-5-1.
Being the lone striker means a heavy workload for Nade and playing much of the 90 minutes facing away from goal and the Frenchman added: "All I want to do is to play football.
"The manager is the one who makes the choice and I am happy with that. Sure, it is better for me to play with another striker because it means that I can play facing the goal, at the moment it is always with my back to goal.
"But these are our tactics and we have done well with them."
After the match, Hearts were paired with Falkirk in the fifth round of the competition and it is a game Nade is looking forward to and one that he believes will see a lot of good football being played.
Nade said: "I think that it is good to play against a team like Falkirk, especially at home.
"They are a good team, they always play very well."
Meanwhile, Hibs skipper Rob Jones claimed that the sending-off of Steven Fletcher for a tackle on Hearts skipper Christophe Berra had altered the course of the game and being reduced to ten men had made it even more difficult for them to push out of their own half.
However, he felt that the Hibs players deserved credit for continuing to give 100 per cent even when the odds were stacked against them.
Jones said: "The game changed after Steven's sending-off.
"I think that we were on top and could have nicked the first goal, the first goal was always going to be an important one. They got it and it brought them back into the game, to be honest. It changed how the game panned out but there was still a long way to go in the game when Steven got sent off. I think it's testament to the boys for the way that they kept going from the half-hour stage. It's always difficult when you have ten men on the park, especially in the derby. We ended up disappointed, though. The game ended up 2-0 but there were never two goals in it."
The big defender and his colleagues in Hibs' backline did everything possible to try to bring their attacking players into the match but conceded that their ball in the final third of the park had not been up to scratch, adding: "When you have ten men, space becomes more vast and I think the midfield got a little bit overrun at times because of that.
"It was difficult for us to get out and I think that it was important for us, as a back four, to try to get as far up the field as possible to try to condense the game but unfortunately that didn't really happen. They always had that extra man on the ball and it made it more difficult. Our final ball forward wasn't great and it was difficult to get the centre forwards into the game.
