Derek McInnes addresses Hearts title talk, makes Rangers claim and reveals what he wants team to do

But the 54-year-old is far too astute and wise to entertain either notion publicly as he instead focused on the difficult challenge his league leaders will face against the next visitors to Tynecastle Park and dismissed any talk of a title race.

Hearts will go into the pre-Christmas showdown six points ahead of Celtic and nine in front of third-placed Rangers with the Glasgow duo both having a game in hand over the Edinburgh side.

With 38 points accrued from 17 games, including the maximum nine taken from three games against the Old Firm, it has been a dream season thus far for the Jambos.

Inflicting a first league defeat on Danny Rohl's Rangers would be another major step ahead of the Edinburgh derby against Hibs at Easter Road on December 27 that will bring up the halfway point of the campaign.

McInnes, however, insists that it is still "too early" to speak about the prospect of maroon ribbons being tied around the league trophy come May for the first time in 65 years.

"I genuinely think it's too early to say anything about being in a title race," he said. "I think for us it's just got to be to maintain our work. There's tough games in this league and it's hard to show consistency.

"I feel comfortable with who we are, home and away, but we also recognise that every game is a challenge.

"You play Rangers over the years, you play them regardless if they're firing on all cylinders or they're not, it's still a tough game. We're under no illusions it's a tough game. There's probably ourselves and Motherwell who are overachieving at the minute in terms of league position but Rangers are a capable team.

"They've got a lot of big game experience and a lot of good players but nonetheless we can't wait for the game. We feel we're in a good place and it's an opportunity for us to try and get another three points. The good thing for me is, I feel if we get to our levels, and we turn up for our work and we do our jobs well, then we're hopeful we can get the right outcome."

McInnes insists that the focus within the Hearts camp - rather than staying ahead of any supposed title challengers - is self-improvement. For all Hearts have been a force this season, the manager wants more.

"For us to meet the demand here we're still going to have to improve as the season goes along," McInnes stressed. "I keep saying to the players that we need to improve individually. We need to get our numbers better, we need more clean sheets, we need to keep winning games and for that to all play out for us we need to keep improving."

Hearts have been handed a boost with Beni Baningime and Calem Nieuwenhof close to being available for the weekend.

“We were hoping to try and get Beni on the training pitch on Friday," McInnes added, while confirming that he hopes to have new signing Islam Chesnokov available for the home game against Livingston on January 3.