Steven Naismith demands a Hearts challenge amid Celtic and Rangers title pressure

Steven Naismith demands a Hearts challenge amid Celtic and Rangers title pressure

Steven Naismith, the head coach at Tynecastle, believes that Hearts can take advantage of the pressure of the Premiership title battle when they play Celtic on Sunday. With just two points separating Celtic and Rangers at the top of the table, he wants his team to take advantage of the situation and produce a result.

After Rangers’ 5-0 victory at Ibrox last week, Naismith is asking that his players confront Celtic to show that they can compete with the Glasgow giants. Hearts and Hibs drew 1-1 at home on Wednesday. Celtic is currently on its way to Gorgie.

Naismith told the Edinburgh News, “It’s a big test because the Old Firm have much bigger budgets and their quality is high.” “If you offer them chances, like we did,

More often than not, they will score the goals than not. This is a task that we must enjoy. You have to compete with them if we want to be at the top of the table and in that group.

“Ibrox wasn’t good enough, but overall, I think our Old Firm games have been competitive and well-performed. We anticipate a challenging Sunday. We must take advantage of our home advantage, the confidence we have cultivated over the season, and the fact that a true title competition is underway. We must make the most of the fact that the Old Firm’s pressure varies from game to game.”

Even though Hearts’ performance was not at its best After dropping five goals a few days earlier in the Edinburgh derby, Naismith’s defense gave them hope. In central defence, Frankie Kent and Stephen Kingsley both distinguished themselves. “We all knew last weekend wasn’t good enough from a defensive point of view but there was no sulking,” stated Naismith.

We handled every situation that Hibs threw at us, and that’s because we are decent people. Leaders and admirable individuals are Kent and Kingsley. They are the first to let you know when something isn’t good enough. We have a strong team of players who are resilient and uphold the necessary standards.

“On Wednesday, things could have gotten tense. Before you know it, the crowd is focusing on you, and it gets awful.”

environment. After Hibs’ goal, we had our best period of play; we moved the ball around, won our penalty, and gained some degree of freedom in our play. That’s driven by the men in the locker room.

“From our position the previous weekend, it was a favorable moment for us. We are now one point higher in the league table than we were prior to the game, so that’s a positive thing. That’s a good thing. We have twelve points to spare. We had a test over the weekend, and we expected a response, which we received.”

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