'Hearts expected to win every game' - Robbie Neilson on no comfort zone at Tynecastle

Robbie Neilson has reminded his Hearts players there is no comfort zone at Tynecastle Park - and the reaction from the defeat at Rangers proves that.

The Tynecastle Park club are comfortable in third spot going into tonight’s league clash with bottom-of-the-table Dundee in Gorgie.

Hearts go into off the back of a 5-0 loss at Ibrox on Sunday, the away side capitulating across 20 second-half minutes when they conceded four goals.

It was a result which provoked introspection and criticism amongst supporters.

Hearts manager Robbie Neilson. (Photo by Mark Scates / SNS Group)

Neilson believes such a reaction shows the standards at the club are high.

“You can’t get too up or down, the team has done very well, we’re sitting in third position and we need to try and cement that position then get a good cup run," he said.

"The next two games against Dundee and Livingston in the Scottish Cup are very important to that.

“You saw the reaction after we got beat by Rangers, we’re expected to win every single game. We play Dundee and the pressure is to win it. If we can do that the pressure is to beat Livingston on Saturday.

“I don’t think when you play with Hearts you are ever in a comfort zone.”

Hearts are set to without Michael Smith and defensive lynchpin Craig Halkett once again but could welcome back John Souttar for the Dundee game.

Neilson sees the game as an opportunity to build on their positive season so far with third place and the Scottish Cup the target for the remainder of the campaign.

He said: “We want to finish as high up the league as we can then on Saturday, we want to try and win the Scottish Cup, we want to try and get to the final or as far as we can get and it’s important we do that.

“It’s been a busy period for us, coming back we will be something like eight games in 26 days so it’s back to back games.

"We may have good games and bad games and when we lose a game we need to make sure we get back on it and to the players credit we’ve done that this year."

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