Derek McInnes continues to ignore both hype and scepticism as Hearts beat Celtic

Hearts head coach Derek McInnes will continue to ignore both the hype and the scepticism after his side changed the narrative again in the William Hill Premiership title race.

Hearts reinvigorated their season with a 2-1 win at Celtic Park on Sunday to move three points clear of the champions.

The league leaders had seen an eight-point gap wiped out after winning just one out of six matches in between their two victories over Celtic this season.

But they have still only lost once, a 1-0 defeat at Aberdeen, and McInnes was unconcerned that some people were writing off his team after they struggled to build on their first win over the Hoops.

“I actually don’t care,” he said. “I genuinely don’t care what any of you say. Because we’ve never been as good as you’ve said. And I don’t think we’re as bad as people have said.

“I get why people can get a bit excited and that’s for fans and all the rest of it.

“But if you actually looked at the start of the season, we’d got a wee bit of fortune. We’d won games late on. We’d won games with a lot of set-plays. We were carrying threats and scoring goals.

“For two or three games there, we didn’t carry the same goal threat.

“And listen, there’s going to be peaks and troughs. Our boys are fully committed, really honest with their work, but we’ve got to accept sometimes that they’re going to have a wee dip. You just don’t want that to continue too long.

“And I thought that we’ve just been OK of late. And OK normally doesn’t get you wins in the Premiership. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing. You’ve got to be better than that. And you’ve got to turn up for your work.

“We turned up for our work on Sunday and we got our reward against a good team. But it’s only three points.

“Our fight’s with ourselves just to try and keep getting that consistency of performances that we were getting at the start of the campaign.

Hearts made a slow start at Parkhead and Daizen Maeda missed two good chances for the hosts.

But the visitors looked like a team that were rediscovering their belief after Claudio Braga netted a 43rd-minute opener.

McInnes, whose side travel to Falkirk on Saturday night, said: “Certainly winning at Celtic Park, if you can’t take a bit of belief and confidence from winning here, then I don’t know where you’re going to get it.

“I’ve not had any doubt in what we’re doing and working towards.

“But I know we’ve got more good than not going on in here. We’ve been affected by one or two injuries, particularly in the middle of the park. But we just need to try and keep winning games.

“January will give us a chance to maybe address one or two things. But once we come through the festive fixtures and all the rest, hopefully we’re in a good place.

“And hopefully we come out the January window a bit stronger again and ready for the second part of the campaign.”