HEARTS head coach Robbie Neilson is adamant the prospect of damaging Hibs' promotion push will not be uppermost in his mind ahead of this afternoon's Edinburgh derby.
Instead, he believes his players' personal pride will be enough to drive them on to victory at Easter Road. The Hibees have lost three of their last four outings in the league, leaving them level on points with Rangers, and are yet to taste victory against the Jambos this term. If they falter this afternoon it could go a long way to ensuring they face an additional playoff tie at the end of the season. Nevertheless, Neilson insists he will not be looking across the city for his motivation.
He said: "It's not about doing damage to Hibs' hopes, not at all. Maybe that is something for the fans - but for us as a team, players and staff it's not about that. "This game is about trying to win a massive derby match and about our own pride going out there. I'm pretty sure that is all the motivation we need."
The title was won at a canter for the imperious capital club three weeks ago, however Neilson has been unwavering in his insistence that their standards will not drop in the run in. And, with the away section sold out this afternoon, he has demanded the very highest levels of effort and quality from his charges.
Neilson continued: "It is the last derby of the season so it's important we win it and give the fans something to shout about. "They've backed us all season and they will back us in huge numbers again on Sunday so we've got to perform. It doesn't matter where we are in the league, this is always a huge game."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article