Jorge Grant urges Hearts not to be intimidated by Celtic ahead of double-header

Hearts midfielder Jorge Grant says his side can’t afford to be intimidated by Celtic’s form if they are to have any success in their league and cup double-header this week.

Grant and his team-mates travel to Celtic part to take on the champions and Premiership leaders in the league on Wednesday night before playing host to Ange Postecoglou’s side on Saturday when a place in the Scottish Cup semi-finals is at stake.

Celtic have been on a long unbeaten run in domestic competition and collected the first silverware of the season with their Viaplay Cup triumph at the end of February.

Grant has plenty of admiration for the Celtic players but says that can’t affect how Hearts approach the challenge of trying to cause an upset.

“They are top quality players, you can see there are international players in there as well,” he said.

“At times they have been really good to watch this season but it is important that we don’t get intimidated by who they are and the club itself and we go there and try our best to get three points.

“First of all we have to be totally focused.

“We have to be concentrated 100% of the game otherwise if you slip for one moment you can see that they can definitely take a goal.

“It is important that we don’t let them do that.

“I feel we have to be solid defensively but we also have to play our game. We have to implement what we bring to the table on Wednesday.”

The sides played out a seven-goal thriller at Tynecastle in October when Celtic were 4-3 victors and the midfielder said they could take some positives from scoring three times.

And though the back-to-back games offer different rewards, Grant said the players couldn’t afford to look past the first encounter.

“Of course you have to look at that previous game and see that we have scored three goals against them,” he said.

“Scoring three goals at home and not winning the game is not normal.

“So definitely, if we can implement what we do at home away from home as well then that will be good.

“The priority is Wednesday. We can concentrate on the other game once that is out of the way. We have to concentrate on Wednesday.

“If you start to look ahead too much then you start thinking about those games and not the one in front of you, so it is important that we focus totally on Wednesday.”