There is no question now that Hearts are in a relegation battle. There is a long way to go but they are just three points above bottom St Johnstone and 10 off the top six.
Even Hibs, who labored similarly just a few weeks ago, are now seven points clear with four wins on the spin.
The Easter Road side were known for scoring late goals but it seems the bug has now spread across town as Hearts have now conceded nine goals in the last 15 minutes of the second half.
The latter’s weakness was reminiscent of the Conference League game against Moldovan side Petrocub. Hearts fought back to go 2-1 up, before conceding an equalizer that eliminated them from the competition.
Lead is seemingly protected, not built upon. In both games, with the lead intact in the last few minutes, they sat back and invited pressure on themselves.
“We’re in a period where moments are taking us,” Critchley told BBC Scotland.
“It’s on us, as a group, to do better than that. It’s hard to win football games. You have to go from the first minute to the end and do the fundamentals well enough and we didn’t do that at the end.”
The problem for head coaches is, they often don’t do the basics well for most of the 90 minutes, not just the last two minutes.
