Celtic title party branded 'irrelevant' as Steven Naismith makes Hearts team talk vow

Hearts interim manager Steven Naismith insists Celtic's potential title party is "irrelevant" and will not form part of his team talk ahead of Sunday's Premiership clash at Tynecastle.

Ange Postecoglou's side will become champions for a second year running if they claim victory in Gorgie but Naismith is only concerning himself with his own side's ambitions to reclaim third place.

Hearts have fallen five points behind Aberdeen in the race for third spot and the potential guarantee of the Europa Conference League group stages next season, providing Celtic defeat Inverness in the Scottish Cup final.

A positive result against the Hoops would be a huge boost to Hearts' hopes, while also preventing Celtic from clinching the league title on their home turf, but Naismith, who was appointed until the summer following Robbie Neilson's sacking last month, is urging his players to ignore the hype around the game.

Hearts' interim manager Steven Naismith is aiming for a positive result against Celtic on Sunday. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

"Whether Celtic win the league or not is irrelevant to us," he told Sky Sports. "It's an opportunity for us to go and try and get three points because at this business end of the season that's all that matters.

"We need to win games of football to try and finish as high as we can. Celtic have been the strongest team in Scotland consistently for two years now.

"We need to be disciplined, we need to have full control when we have the ball and when we don't. Celtic are a team who are very aggressive in the way they play and that intensity is there, so we need to be ready for that.

"With it being a home game we want to go out and cause as many problems as what Celtic will cause us.

"Our mindset is about us and what we can do. We've got games from now and the end of the season to try and get in the European places. That's got to be our focus."

"In one respect you want a game to come pretty quickly because that performance was pretty good, but what the break gave us was a lot more time on the training pitch," the former Scotland striker added.

"We've used the time very wisely in terms of the fundamental parts of the game that we want to play, we've got that into the players."