Hearts head to Ibrox Stadium to take on Rangers on Saturday in confident mood as they look to maintain their recent good form. The Gorgie club have lost just once since the beginning of November and although that was at Celtic Park at the end of January, Head Coach Craig Levein is confident his team can take something from a fixture they traditionally struggle in. He told the official Hearts website:
“We need to play well, whether it quiets the crowd or not. The important thing for me is us starting the game properly.”
“We didn’t start particularly well last week at Ross County and it took a while for us to get any sort of momentum at all.”
“Every time you play Rangers at Ibrox you need to play well and start the game well. We need to make sure that we don’t do anything silly in the early part of the match and give Rangers reason to feel hopeful. It always is a big test. Away to Rangers is one of the hardest fixtures in the league. We’re aware of that. I’m hopeful that we can do enough to score through there. Defensively we’ve been fairly good. We’ve managed to be very consistent.”
“We need to be good on both of these things. We need to stop Rangers from scoring and we need to take advantage of any opportunities that come our way. Every time we go to Ibrox, no matter how Rangers are, it’s obviously a big challenge. I was at the Hamilton game and saw some reasons to be fearful for their attacking play and some reasons to feel quite good about how we can possibly score.”
“They’re certainly a threat going forward, there’s no doubt about that.”
Hearts will be without long-term injury victims Arnaud Djoum and Jamie Brandon although Levein is hopeful Steven Naismith’s hamstring problem will have recovered sufficiently to allow him to face his former team.
Author of The Team for Me - 50 Years of Following Hearts. Runs Mind Generating Success, a successful therapy practice in Edinburgh. Contact me if you want rid of any unwanted habits. Twitter @Mike1874
