Hearts looking to bounce back to winning ways in Edinburgh derby

Steven Naismith is looking for his side to bounce back from their disappointment at the weekend and get back to winning ways in the Edinburgh derby.

Hearts suffered their first defeat in over two months in the 5-0 defeat to Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday after a run of 11 wins and one draw from their previous 12 games.

But they have a chance to put it behind them when they host their city rivals on Wednesday.

Hibs travel across the city for the third derby of the season as they look to push for a place in the top six before the split in April.

Hearts on the other hand have a commanding lead in the race for the third spot and sit 11 points ahead of fourth placed Kilmarnock.

After the heavy defeat at Ibrox, Naismith believes the game could be the perfect environment to get back to top-form and potentially begin another run of wins.

Speaking on Tuesday, he said: “It’s a big game, and the positive is that you’ve got a game so quickly after a defeat to get back on to a winning feeling.

“And hopefully start another good run like what we done previously. So far until this point it has been a good season, we are in a comfortable position in third and it’s about continuing on that progress.

“We’ve put ourselves in a good position where we just need to keep our levels at as high as possible and the results will take care of themselves.

“We’ve been good at that and with it being a derby it will be a good game, the two derbies this season have been open, the last one probably lacked a bit of quality but overall they’ve been entertaining games.

“Every game there is a demand, every game that’s there, so we’re not going to do any different than we have been doing for the last three months.

“We are going into a derby that will be an entertaining game, we won the last one and shot ourselves in the foot the one before that, but in the derbies we have been in a good place throughout the games.

“I want us to be there again tomorrow, I want to start fast, have energy and ultimately make it an atmosphere that is intimidating and then we can go on and put on a good performance.”