JIM Jefferies has predicted his former club Hearts will be capable of challenging for the Scottish title in the near future – due to the sharp decline in standards at both Celtic and Rangers.

Hearts have impressed greatly on their return to the Premiership this season – not least on Saturday when they trounced a Motherwell side which had gone six games unbeaten 6-0 at Tynecastle.

Robbie Neilson’s men are currently in third place in the top flight table as well as in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup and their supporters are optimistic they can build on their Championship success of last season and land more silverware.

It is a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for the Edinburgh club, which was in administration less than two years ago, but new owner Ann Budge has publicly stated they should set their sights higher going forward.

Jefferies was the last Hearts manager to mastermind a sustained challenge to Celtic and Rangers for the Scottish title; his side was in contention for the majority of the 1997/98 season before falling away at the death.

Now happily retired from football, after nearly 50 years of involvement in the game as both a player and a manager, he believes it is far easier for the Tynecastle club to be crowned champions and has urged them to make than an objective.

“Celtic are certainly the best side in Scotland at the moment,” he said. “They have got the resources and they have got good players.

"But compare them to the team that included Henrik Larsson, John Hartson, Chris Sutton, Stiliyan Petrov and Neil Lennon. Celtic aren’t anywhere near as good as that team. I am sure even their own players would acknowledge that.

“Rangers are in the same boat. They're on the right track now after all of their troubles with Mark Warburton and Davie Weir in charge. They have done extremely well this season. But they aren’t spending the sort of money they did in the past when they had Paul Gascoigne, Brian Laudrup, Jorg Albertz and Lorenzo Amoruso.

“In those days it was sometimes a two horse race for the title between Celtic and Rangers by Christmas. That was when it was really hard to challenge the Old Firm clubs. When they had teams of that quality Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen found it hard to compete with them.

“But what is the points difference between Aberdeen and Celtic now? Just six points. If the gulf in standard between Celtic and the rest continues to close then clubs like Aberdeen and Hearts will have a better chance to win the title. The players they have brought in haven’t been of the same quality.

“I keep in touch with people involved in the game now and they all say the same thing – that the standard of Scottish football isn’t as good as it was. There’s a definite opportunity there for any club, but particularly Hearts and Aberdeen and even, if they come up, Hibs, to go and challenge to win the league.

“Teams like Hearts and Aberdeen will never get a better chance if they keep progressing as they have done in the last couple of years. I think if I was involved at Hearts or Aberdeen I would be thinking along those lines.

“I think Hearts have a really good chance in the Scottish Cup as well. It is a difficult draw against their city rivals Hibs. But they have home advantage and they certainly did well there against Aberdeen in the last round.”

Jefferies finest hour during his first six year reign as Hearts manager came in 1998 when the Tynecastle club beat the great Rangers side of that era 2-1 at Celtic Park to win the Scottish Cup for the first time in 42 years.

However, he had suffered bitter disappointment that season when his team’s bid to end the Old Firm stranglehold on the Scottish title ended in failure. Looking back now, he feels that failing to strengthen his squad for the closing games of the campaign ultimately proved their undoing.

“The signing deadline was in March back then,” said Jefferies. “If we had maybe pushed to bring in one or two big signings before it then maybe we could have won. But we still ran them close.

“Celtic and Rangers had very, very good teams at that time. They had great squads of players. You had to be a good team to challenge them for the league. We attracted a lot of praise for the way we played and the goals we scored.

“It all hinged on a couple of games for us. It was very close. We took on Motherwell in a midweek match at Tynecastle and lost a late goal to draw 1-1 and then went to Easter Road and conceded a late goal and lost 2-1. That finished off our challenge. But we took it right to the last three or four matches.

“To win the Scottish Cup for the first time in 40 years was a nice reward for a good season. To beat that Rangers side in Glasgow was a great achievement. We had a great squad of players and the team was similar to the existing side in that it pretty much picked itself. A couple of years before that we had just avoided relegation too.”