Head coach Neil Critchley says Wednesday’s home fixture against St Mirren is another opportunity for Hearts to keep their positive momentum going, in what is a busy week.
Both sides were victorious at the weekend, with the men in maroon getting the better of St Johnstone in Perth, meanwhile the Buddies picked up an impressive three points at Ibrox.
Critchley admits he’s expecting a difficult challenge from Stephen Robinson’s side, but says Hearts are also in good form, which breeds confidence.
Speaking to the media at the pre-match press conference, he said:
“I think we have six games to the split. It was the start of a big week against St Johnstone. St Mirren is our next game, it's a really tough game.
“They're obviously in good form after their victory at the weekend. We just have to have that mentality of next game, next game, what's next? Keep moving forward, keep driving the standards every day, trying to improve. It is an incentive, it is.
“It fills everyone with confidence and belief. When you're performing well and winning games, that's what it breeds. This is our next opportunity, being at home, to keep our good form going. We don't want to miss that opportunity.
“Stephen's done a fantastic job at St Mirren. They're a really well-coached, organised team, who have attacking threats as well.
“The Cup game was, as the scoreline suggests, a very tight game. It could have gone either way. Off the back of their victory at the weekend, that will give them an enormous amount of confidence coming to our place.
“I say we're in good form as well, we're playing well. We've shown different ways of winning games of football. We've shown real grit and resilience when we've needed it.
"We've been ruthless at both ends of the pitch for the vast majority of this run, and we're going to need to be all of those things tomorrow night.”
On the injury front, Critchley confirmed Cammy Devlin will miss the match, but Yan Dhanda could return, following a short spell on the sidelines.
“Cammy won't make it unfortunately. He's still not right, which is not good for Cammy.
“I spoke to him this morning and he's still feeling the effects of the collision that he had, which is not good. But again, we're not going to take any chances on his health and his wellbeing, that is the most important thing. It's frustrating for him and us, but we just have to give him the time that he needs.
“Just headaches, that's it. He's been out and trained, he's trained a day or two and he's just not been right since. Obviously, we have to take a step back, keep assessing him, keep monitoring him, and then hopefully again start to build up.
“But at the moment he's just had a few days where he's not been doing anything, and we have to keep looking after him.
“We're hopeful that Yan would be available. He's trained the last few days, we just have to decide now whether he's done enough, and he feels comfortable, and also that he's right to come back into the squad because we've been playing well and winning games, and we've got quite strong options from the bench at the moment as well.”
You can watch Neil’s press conference in full on Hearts TV.
Wednesday's match is live on PPV
