Hearts refuse to set points target as Derek McInnes reveals what Celtic and Rangers fans say to him

The Jambos are five points ahead of Celtic and six clear of Rangers with nine games remaining as they bid to end 40 consecutive seasons of Old Firm dominance of the Scottish top flight.

When it was put to McInnes that, given all the main protagonists still have to face each other after the split, six wins might be enough for Hearts to get over the line, the manager said: “I got asked earlier, ‘how many points do you think it will take’? Nobody knows.

“We can all surmise and we can guess, but nobody would have guessed that Hearts would be where we are this length of time. We just need to concentrate on each game.

“That’s why I’m not looking at blocks of games, or trying to get X amount of points. We’re playing teams with so much to play for and every game becomes more critical for each team.

“We’ve just got to make sure that our motivation stays high, our professionalism stays tight Monday to Friday and that then becomes second nature in the game.”

McInnes revealed he has been slightly shielded from the hype about a possible Hearts title win because he does not live in Edinburgh.

Hearts’ business end still to come

“I live in the West (of Scotland), so I normally get Rangers fans saying, ‘if we don’t win it, I hope you win it’ and I get Celtic fans saying, ‘if we don’t win it, I hope you win it’,” smiled McInnes. “It doesn’t really matter what’s getting said. I think there’s still a lot of people out there who think it’s still maybe a step too far for us.

“But we can’t really get caught up in that, we’ve just got to concentrate on winning games of football. I’ve said all along that I think we can win enough games to be in the fight, and I think that’s played out. The business end of the season is still to come, but we’ve certainly put ourselves in a position.”

McInnes confirmed Oisin McEntee would return for Saturday night’s trip to struggling Kilmarnock, with key duo Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland due to resume full training next week following their injury lay-offs.

Hearts’ travelling support have enjoyed some rousing Saturday-night trips to Killie, Falkirk and Dundee United this term, and McInnes is hoping for another against Neil McCann’s side.

“We’ve got 5,000 fans going on Saturday night, which tells you everything,” said the manager. “We could play at four in the morning and I think our fans would be there, that’s the way it feels at the minute. We feel as if they just want to follow us.

“When we run out at Rugby Park for the warm-up and the lads see that, it feels like a big game right away – like a cup tie. A lot of our good memories and good moments of this season have been away from home and Saturday’s going to be another opportunity to have that.”