The priority for Robbie Neilson may be an immediate return to the Sottish Premiership, but he’s been preparing for Saturday’s Scottish Cup semi-final against Hibs since June.
Hearts returned to training in early August despite the Championship campaign not kicking off until 16 October.
However, the Tynecastle boss wanted to get back to work early to ensure his squad was ready for the crunch Hampden clash against their oldest rivals.
With the Hibees having been back in competitive action since then, Neilson was determined to have his charges as sharp as possible for the last four encounter and not hand their opponents any sort of advantage.
I came in the middle of June and we knew the game was coming though we weren’t sure exactly when it was going to be, but we knew it would be towards the start of the season.
“It’s the reason we spoke to Ann about coming in a lot earlier. Yes, it was to get off to a good start in the league, but to be honest it was really about making sure we were ready for this game.
“This game has been at the back of everybody’s minds, and the forefront of most fans’ minds, for the last four or five months. We know the extent of the game. We know we have to be ready for it, and we feel we are.
“I’m more than confident that we’ll be up to speed and at the same level as Hibs.
"The players are in a good place. We’ve actually come off it a bit this week just to make sure that they’re ready and I don’t have any qualms about it at all.”
