How Hearts plan to deal with Celtic Park scar tissue as Wouter Vrancken ponders major changes

Wouter Vrancken is confident his Hearts team won’t “live in the past” when they travel to Celtic Park for the first time since losing a Premiership title decider earlier this year.

Hearts played Celtic in May on the final day of last season requiring either a draw or a win to win the league title for the first time since 1960. They were four minutes away from doing so, only for late Celtic goals from Daizen Maeda and Callum Osmand to give the hosts a 3-1 win and allow Martin O’Neill’s men to retain their trophy.

The match finished in chaotic fashion, with Celtic fans invading the pitch to celebrate, with Hearts players accosted by some supporters and being forced to flee the field of play. They boarded the team bus back to Edinburgh still in their kit and weren’t able to conduct post-match press duties.

Hearts' Stuart Findlay looks crestfallen after losing the title at Celtic Park last season. | SNS Group

Many of the Hearts set-up that day have left the club, including manager Derek McInnes, captain Lawrence Shankland and the likes of Cammy Devlin, Beni Baningime and Alexandros Kyziridis. Their new head coach Vrancken has instilled an aggressive, attack-minded playing style and he does not believe the current squad will be haunted by events of earlier in the year.

“I'm convinced that the players will be in their heads in the game on Sunday and not in the past,” said Vrancken, whose Hearts team go into the match in third place, five points behind Celtic. “You cannot live in the past; this is sports. You have to move forward, and you have to look forward, and you have to take on the next one. I'm pretty convinced and confident that it will be like that.

“I hope the fire is there every game that we play, and not only because something happened in the past. Like I said, you don't have to look in the past too much because otherwise it's negative energy, and we need positive energy. This fire has to burn when you play every game, especially the top games, and when you can make a result there, we do a good thing in the league.”

Hearts prepared for their trip along the M8 with a 1-1 draw with Nordsjaelland at Tynecastle in the Conference League, while Celtic lost 4-1 away to Benfica in the Europa League. Vrancken played down the advantage of not having to travel abroad ahead of such a pivotal match and having not been on the end of a heavy defeat.

“Yes, but we were there also,” said Vrancken, in reference to losing 6-1 to Benfica themselves earlier in the season. “It's all different games, and it's a good side. We have to be top level every time in energy and quality in what we want to show and see on the pitch. We have to take the confidence of our performance from the first 70 minutes against Nordsjaelland to the game on Sunday.”

Vrancken may make changes to his team amid such a sapping schedule. “Yes, that's possible,” he added. “The most important thing is how the players recover, little issues maybe, and how they recover tomorrow and the day after. Maybe it's on matchday itself, when you only have two days' rest, maybe it's matchday itself that you make the decisions.”