Cammy Devlin targets first win over Rangers since arrival at Hearts

Hearts midfielder Cammy Devlin is desperate to experience his first victory over Rangers on Sunday.

The Jambos have failed to win any of their 16 matches against Gers since the Australian midfielder joined in the summer of 2021.

Hearts’ last triumph over Rangers was in a Scottish Cup quarter-final tie at Tynecastle in February 2020, while they have not won at Ibrox since August 2014.

Devlin takes some heart from the fact his side have drawn the last two meetings with the Light Blues, including on the opening day of this season.

“Rangers are a good side, they had a good result against Olympiacos (a 1-1 draw on Thursday),” said the Aussie. “No matter how they’re going, when they’re on it, they’re a really good side so we’ll need to be on our game.

“Since I’ve been here, we’ve had a few draws and some close calls against them. The first game of the season against them was a real positive game for us but we just couldn’t get the breakthrough.

“Going there is always tough but we’ll have our own game-plan and try and implement that.”

After a dire start to the season which cost Steven Naismith his job, Hearts have enjoyed an upturn in form under Neil Critchley. They have won three of their six matches since the Englishman took charge, while they have taken encouragement from a spirited display in Thursday’s 2-0 defeat at home to Bundesliga side Heidenheim.

“We can take a lot of confidence from the way we performed (on Thursday),” said Devlin. “We’re playing good football at the moment.

“Since the gaffer’s come in, we obviously lost at home to Kilmarnock but that first half against them was similar to Thursday in terms of we played such good football and were on top and we had chances and just didn’t score them.

“But goals win games. Against St Mirren at home, we played the same but we scored goals and won 4-0. I feel like the team is confident at the moment but it’s frustrating to lose games. The best thing about being in Europe is we have another game coming round quickly.

“It’s important that we keep trying to play the way the coaches are trying to get us to play because when we do it well, it does work.”