IT is unlikely that Hearts will, despite their hugely impressive form since returning to the cinch Premiership, finish above either Celtic or Rangers come next May, never mind lift the Scottish title.

Their Glasgow rivals have far larger budgets and much stronger squads and should pull ahead of them in the table as the season progresses.

Yet, the Gorgie club are certainly giving their supporters, who have been through so much in the past 18 months or so, reason to dream at the moment.

Robbie Neilson’s men bounced back from their first league defeat of the 2021/22 campaign – they lost 2-1 to Aberdeen at Pittodrie last week - in sensational style yesterday.

Hearts, who were missing their first choice striker and leading scorer Liam Boyce, rattled in five against Dundee United, opponents who were level on points with them, in an enormously entertaining encounter at Tynecastle.

A Ben Woodburn double, an Alex Cochrane strike, a Stephen Kingsley header and a late Aaron McEneff goal sewed up another three points. They leapfrogged Celtic into second spot in the Premiership and moved to within three points of leaders Rangers as a result of the 5-2 win.

The Championship champions’ position is likely to change this afternoon; the Parkhead club take on struggling Dundee away while their Ibrox rivals host bottom-placed Ross County. Still, Hearts are not going away.

Asked if Hearts could sustain their current form, Neilson said: "For us the key this season is going to be consistency. Can we do it every week? If we can there's no doubt when we get to the end of the season we will be in a very good position.

"I don't think anyone would have said that we were title contenders if they had seen us last week at Pittodrie. It's about consistency for us.

“Rangers went to Motherwell last week and won 6-1. We need to get to that level, where we are consistently going to away games and winning, if we are to get anywhere near them. Just now, we will win and some lose some.”

Still, Neilson was delighted to see Woodburn, the Welsh internationalist who joined on loan from Liverpool back in August, open his account in the first-half and then add a second after half-time. He believes the midfielder will take great confidence from his brace.

“He is a top player,” he said. “It will be a release to get that goal. He has been putting a lot of pressure on himself to score goals and to come up here and do well. I just think the goals were the final thing he needed to release him. I thought that after the first goal he flourished. So we will see even more from him.

“His finish for the second was no bad was it? There is no doubt that he is a top player and when it falls in the box like that he is one of the few in the team that you would expect to score it.”

The visitors fought back from 2-0 down and 3-1 down. Ryan Edwards netted a long-range strike that took a wicked deflection off Kingsley and Nicky Clark scored a diving header after being supplied by Kieran Freeman.  

But the loss of Charlie Mulgrew - United’s vastly-experienced centre half failed to reappear for the second-half due to a muscle injury – was keenly felt despite the best efforts of his teenage replacement Kerr Smith.

“It has been one of those weeks, this week,” said United manager Tam Courts. “Kerr (Smith) has had a personal issue to deal with, we have been trying to nurse Charlie towards the game and Dylan (Levitt) pulled out yesterday. So we have been chasing the whole week and that’s the way the game unfolded as well.

“It was one of those games for us when anything that could go wrong, did. We couldn’t get that continuity going to get back into it.

“Kerr is 16 years old. I’m really proud of him for the bravery he showed going onto the pitch today because he has had a really tough week, He’ll learn from today, the team will learn, I will learn, and we’ll be better for it.”

He continued: “I actually thought we started really, really well. We were on the front foot, we had a good shape about us. It was almost looking for something to grab it and help us get the breakthrough.

“But then we started to become really loose. Hearts obviously got the breakthrough and the second goal. And we got a bit of a lifeline coming in at 2-1, to be fair.

“But I always felt we were chasing and when you do that you create space, Hearts took advantage of that. So it was never a game we were in control of, unfortunately.”