Robbie Neilson, the Hearts manager, insists his side are all about style rather than brawn after ruling out a heavy-handed approach to tomorrow's Scottish Cup visit of Celtic.

As the fall-out continues from last week's bruising top-of-the-table Championship victory over Rangers, Neilson says he will not send his players out with orders to bully the opposition.

Free-flowing football is the Tynecastle side's trademark this season and it ultimately prevailed in last Saturday's 2-0 victory over Ally McCoist's men despite an aggressive approach by the visitors that resulted in Steven Smith being ordered off and a flurry of yellow cards.

Kevin McHattie was also the victim of a crunching Kenny Miller tackle that has ruled the Hearts left-back out for six weeks with a knee injury, prompting his team-mate Adam Eckersley to brand some of the challenges a "disgrace" and "shocking".

Neilson, though, is adamant they will not resort to those kind of tactics as they bid to stifle the Premiership leaders in tomorrow's televised fourth-round tie.

"We will stick to our principles of passing and moving the ball, but we may need to change and do some work on our defensive side of the game. I was pleased with the way we handled the atmosphere against Rangers, and did not get drawn into anything overly physical.

"They handled themselves well, they are a young team and when we had the ball we still tried to pass it. If we had gone toe-to-toe with Rangers it might have been difficult for us.

"We are a young team and the players do not have the physicality of a lot of the Rangers players and we knew we had to approach it in a different way. A physical game is not something that suits us.

"We did not want to go into the game and say we are going to be physical because we don't have a lot of physicality, and we needed to make sure we played to our strengths. Our strengths are passing and moving and getting away from the physical aspect."

Amid the turmoil of the club's plunge into administration, Hearts - then managed by Gary Locke - were hammered 7-0 by Celtic in the Scottish Cup at the same time last year. Neilson's side fared better in September's 3-0 League Cup defeat at Celtic Park and he insists last season's collapse has not even been mentioned.

"It is a different regime, different team and different group of players. That was a difficult day for Hearts last season I am sure the players that were involved will have learned a lot from it. The players will realise the kind of opposition that they are up against come Sunday. Things have changed at this club and there is a different mentality about the place now."

Neilson, meanwhile, believes Jon Daly, the Rangers striker and former team-mate, will regret saying that Hearts players were screaming like they had been shot by a sniper during last week's tussle.

He added: "I know Jon really well from my time at Dundee United, he is a good guy. I think after the game you are not seeing things clearly. It is only when you watch it again that you realise what went on.

"I am sure when Jon watches it again he will look at his comments and probably think, in hindsight, that it is something he should not have said."