Former Hearts player and manager Craig Levein is urging "patience" amid a poor run of form under head coach Wouter Vrancken.

The Jambos have registered only two wins in their past 11 matches across all competitions, including a 7-1 defeat at Celtic and Sunday's 5-2 loss at home against Falkirk.

They were also knocked out of the Premier Sports Cup by rivals Hibernian at the start of this month.

But Levein has empathy with Vrancken and believes their current injury situation means his early spell at Hearts can't be judged properly.

"As a manager, you want to have all of your best players available," Levein said.

"Sometimes if you lose the three best centre-backs, you're stuck, the window's closed, there's nothing you can do about it.

"It's very, very difficult to judge what the new manager's bringing to the club until he gets a run of games when he's got all his players available. I urge people just to be a little bit more patient.

"It's been a very, very difficult time for the manager. The fact Derek [McInnes] did such a fantastic job last season, getting right down to the wire, everybody's expectation was, 'That's us nearly done it last year, can we go and do it this year?'.

"The new manager comes in, he's starting from scratch almost, and he gets this whole list of injuries that make things extremely difficult.

"But we have to give the guy time.

"I think the supporters early on have got a wee taste of what things might be like, and I'm urging them just to keep that in your mind and give the guy a little bit of time."