'Crazy things happen' - Hearts not giving up on European hopes as odds stack against them

Hearts forward Josh Ginnelly has insisted the Edinburgh side will not give up on their Europa Conference League hopes despite the odds being stacked against them.

Thursday’s game against Latvian outfit RFS at Tynecastle Park is their second last group match and it would take a fortuitous set of results for Robbie Neilson’s men to finish second and progress to the next stage.

But buoyed by the fact they emerged as 2-0 winners in the away fixture and invigorated by last weekend’s performance against Premiership leaders Celtic, Ginnelly says there is cause to embrace their favourites’ tag when they run out at Tynecastle, hopeful that they could yet have a say in how the group pans out.

“Any game that we play, especially at home, we want to win and of course we want to go through, we just need to get this game out of the way. We need to get the result and then see what happens.”

Hearts winger Josh Ginnelly believes Hearts can still qualify for the Europa Conference League knock-out stages. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

Of course, a win for Fiorentina in the 5.45pm kick-off could render the result against RFS and the final outing against Istanbul Basaksehir moot, but any dropped points would leave the door ajar.

Goals from Lawrence Shankland and Alan Forrest gave Hearts the 2-0 triumph in Latvia, the last time the teams met. The only points picked up by the capital side thus far, that result proves that, on their day, they have the beating of their visitors and that they know how to win in European competition.

"It's football and we have all seen some crazy things happen,” said Ginnelly as he considered all the permutations. “It's about taking it game by game and we need the fans, we need everybody pulling in the one direction. That's from Craig [Gordon] in goal down to the man who is last in the squad.

"We all have to be on board with what we want to do and just see how far it takes us.

‘Everybody who is playing in this competition, each individual has got something. They [RFS] have got quality in certain aspects of the game and credit to them, they’ve gone away from home and picked up a couple of good results.

“So they’ll come to our place and they’ll be backing themselves. But we back ourselves as well.”