Ryan Stevenson applauds Jim Jefferies for instilling spirit at Hearts

RYAN STEVENSON says Hearts' team spirit will help them move up the league table.

The club were beset by problems with squad disharmony in the past, but Stevenson claims that weakness has been turned on it's head and, citing Rangers as an example, he says it can help propel them to the kind of ongoing improvement they want.

"Everybody gets on with each other here and it is a good team spirit and everybody is pushing together in the right direction," says the 26-year-old, who has been sidelined by the form of his midfield rivals. "That is frustrating but we know it's about more than one player, it's about the club doing well as a whole. That's maybe something Hearts have struggled with in recent years, that team spirit and getting everyone pulling in the right direction, but I think we have got that now.

"If you look at Rangers, two or three years ago, people were saying the team was nowhere near as good as the teams from the past but now, nothing has really changed and it's pretty much the same squad that they had. People are saying they are as good as the team in the 90s and that proves that team spirit can take you a long, long way.

"With the manager and Billy (Brown] instilling that in us, every player here knows that is a big, big part of things.

"If you look at Rangers, Walter Smith has been one of their best ever managers and he knows what it takes to make a Rangers team do well.

"That squad two seasons ago, if Valencia had come to Ibrox you would never have thought they would have got that result or even been disappointed with that result.

"That's a sign of how well they are playing just now and it was the same on Sunday against Celtic, we saw how well they coped even going a goal down.

"Like Walter Smith at Rangers, our manager belongs at Hearts. He is a Hearts fan, the fans love him and every single player gets on with him and knows what he wants.

"That gives us a great togetherness and it gets better and better every day for us and, while we know there will be ups and downs over the course of the season for us, that's where the team spirit comes into it.

"When there were ups and downs at Hearts in past seasons, and this was me on the outside looking in, then that's when it seemed that things got worse. Maybe then people were going in different directions whereas now we are totally together. We really are a squad and we know what we can do as a squad and we know what we want as a squad."

Having got back to winning ways at Tynecastle against St Mirren on Saturday, they are now looking to beat Kilmarnock on Sunday and move into the first derby of the season in fine spirit.Stevenson knows a run of results could take them beyond the fourth spot they have settled in at the moment.

"If we are going to do well this season, these are the games that we need to be winning at Tynecastle. We know Rangers and Celtic are a long way ahead of us now but we want to try to bridge that gap.

"If we are going to do that and do well this season we need to do well week in week out. We have had two great results in a row now, at Pittodrie and then again last Saturday, so we go into Sunday's game full of confidence."