'We see it differently' - Lawrence Shankland embraces Hearts label but rejects Celtic and Rangers narrative

The Hearts captain has been around long enough to know that whenever one of the Glasgow giants visits Edinburgh's West End, the greater level of expectation traditionally falls on the away side. That is only natural given the far superior resources at the disposal of Celtic and Rangers.

But with the Jambos sitting top of the Scottish Premiership table - six points ahead of Celtic and nine clear of Rangers - heading into Christmas, it may come as no surprise that bookmakers are predicting a home win.

"I definitely don't!" was Shankland's understandably swift response when asked if he had noted the uncustomary betting odds, given footballers are banned from engaging in such activities. "It's probably the league position, I imagine that plays a part as well.

“Going in as favourites, it's a wee bit of pressure on you, but it's one that we're capable of dealing with. Hopefully we can come out favourites as well at the end of it."

While Hearts are architects of their own success with huge strides made under the management of Derek McInnes and backing of Tony Bloom, the simultaneous implosion of both Old Firm clubs has provided a rare window of opportunity. One that Hearts have so far grasped by beating Celtic home and away and turning over a Rangers side still under previous manager Russell Martin at Ibrox in September.

If there has been a psychological barrier when it comes to challenging the big two, then it has certainly weakened this season, as St Mirren highlighted in the manner of their 3-1 victory over Celtic in last weekend's Premier Sports Cup final.

“I think it's always been there because of the history of Scottish football, it's hard not to address what the two clubs have done for centuries now," Shankland said. "It's something that you do need to deal with, but it's about playing the Rangers team and the Celtic team that's in front of you on the day.

“That's always been the case. I think with our position, we're in a strong position, and our reputation this season helps bring confidence to us. We should be confident because we are where we are because we deserve to be there at the minute.

“We can go in with confidence in these games."

Celtic and Rangers are ‘not in turmoil’

Shankland rejects the idea, however, that the Old Firm sides are in turmoil despite Cetlic losing four games in a row for the first time since 1978 and Rangers still trying to recover from their worst start to a season in 47 years.

“I don't really see it as turmoil,” he said. "We're in the game. We see it differently. We're players who understand the situation teams are in.

"We can only concentrate on ourselves. We can't really interest ourselves in what's going on outwith these doors. We just need to keep trying to win games of football and concentrate on getting points on the board for Hearts. Wherever that takes us, it takes us."

For Hearts to become the first non-Old Firm team to win the title in 41 years they will almost certainly need to keep up their good record against Celtic and Rangers. Nine points have been taken from the duo thus far - but there are still 15 points to be won or lost in the head-to-heads. The outcome this weekend could be the difference between Rangers closing to within six points with a game in hand, or falling 12 adrift.

For all Rangers' woes, Hearts remain the only team to have beaten them in the top flight this season and they are now eight games unbeaten in the league since the appointment of Danny Rohl in October.

"Obviously, they've got a new manager," Shankland said. "They've had a new partnership in defence who have been playing the last few games. [Nasser] Djiga is away now [to the African Cup of Nations] so that will obviously bring a change to their team.

"We need to concentrate on ourselves. We've been playing well. We've got a good couple of results in the last couple of weeks.

“Before that, a few draws, that were made a big deal of. But the performances have been creeping up again.

“We're getting towards where we want to be. Albeit, I didn't think we were that great against Falkirk. We did what we needed to do to get the game won."

Internal message the same as external

While the prospect of Hearts winning the league is the talk of Scottish football, Shankland insists it is not being discussed at the club internally. Asked if manager McInnes is giving his players a different message to the one being portrayed in the media, the skipper replied: “He's absolutely not at all.

“We've always been quite consistent with our thinking from the start of the season, with our ambitions of how many wins and how many points we wanted to get on the board.

“We're on our way to that, so we've done really well in terms of our ambitions and what we wanted to achieve. If we can go and get to that point and go beyond that and get more wins then, we'll be in a good spot.

"Our focus has always been the same, just to get points on the board as much as we can. Thankfully up until this point we've been doing that."

Shankland has finished top scorer in each of his three seasons at Hearts but appears to have a rival for that status in Claudio Braga who levelled his 11-goal tally for the campaign with his opener in the 2-0 win against Falkirk last weekend.

"He probably thinks about it more than me," Shankland said. "He's got that six-year-old head on him that he wants to score all the goals. That's just his personality.

“It's good to have the two of us up there with as many goals as we've got so far. Albeit Scott Bain could have just let that one go past him and done me a favour.

“I'm happy the two of us are sitting with that amount of goals. It's a good sign for the team.”