Hearts chief urges leaders to ‘put marker down’ with victory over Celtic

Chief executive Andrew McKinlay is hoping Hearts can “really put a marker down” by moving eight points clear at the top of the William Hill Premiership on Sunday.

One of the most eagerly awaited fixtures Scottish football has staged in years takes place this weekend as Derek McInnes’ unbeaten early pacesetters host floundering champions Celtic.

McKinlay expects the atmosphere at a packed Tynecastle to be “ramped up to a whole different level” as the buoyant Jambos bid to open up the biggest lead they have enjoyed in the Premiership this century.

“I know Celtic will come here all guns blazing, they’re not a club that like what happened to them last weekend (losing at Dundee), they won’t take it lightly, they’ve obviously got a European game coming (against Sturm Graz) on Thursday,” Hearts’ CEO said in a club interview.

“But we should go into this, and we will go into this, with huge huge confidence. I don’t think there’ll be any talk of free hits or anything like that. That’s not the way I see it, I know it won’t be the way Derek or the players see it.

“They’ll see it as a huge opportunity to really put a marker down, and I really, really hope we can do it. We’ve got as good a chance as we’ve had in a long time to really show that we deserve to be where we are at the top of the league, and I’d love it if we could obviously continue there for a long time to come.”

It has been speculated that if Hearts are in position to challenge for the title come January then Brighton owner Tony Bloom – who invested almost £10million this summer in return for a 29 per cent stake in non-voting shares – will pledge additional funds for new recruits. McKinlay moved to clarify that that would not be the case.

“Yes, we’ll have the benefit of of Jamestown Analytics and that is massively important to allow us to kick on if we do feel we need new players in January or indeed next summer,” said the CEO.

“But there’s been some talk about how if we’re in a really great position that Tony Bloom will put more money into the club to invest further, but and I think it’s important I just emphasise that Tony’s not actually in a position to do that.

“He said this himself in August at the beginning of the season, just to do with UEFA rules (about dual ownership), so I just wanted to make sure people do understand that but I’m very confident that we will have a squad coming out of January that will allow us to to give ourselves the best opportunity as we move through the rest of the season. It’s very very exciting times and we’re really looking forward to that going forward.”