Celtic warned to expect a New Year’s Day battle at Tynecastle

ROB ROBERTSON December 28 2005

The temperature in the build-up to the table-topping clash between Hearts and Celtic on New Year's Day was raised significantly yesterday when one of the Tynecastle side's players warned they were ready for a physical encounter.

Robbie Neilson, the Hearts full-back, said his side were at their best when bullying sides and hoped to do just that straight from kick-off against the Parkhead club. On Boxing Day, they beat Falkirk 5-0 while Celtic had to rely on a late goal to overcome Livingston, keeping a four-point gap between the sides going into the match.

In a wide-ranging interview, Neilson said that Hearts' recent blip in form up until the Falkirk game had been caused by a lack of aggression during matches. He added that the players had pinpointed that problem at a squad meeting and had pledged to be physical and focused from the start against Celtic.

Neilson said: "We spoke during the week because we hadn't performed at all in the defeat at Ibrox last weekend. You can see after the performance against Falkirk that the fight is back in the team. I don't know what happened to it, we just lost our aggression. We've got that back now, definitely, just in time for the Celtic game and, hopefully, the win over Falkirk sets us up nicely for that.

"It's hard to explain but we were definitely struggling, maybe because as players we thought we had made it already and took our foot off the gas. We have to realise that it's a long fight for us and, hopefully, getting a big win like the one against Falkirk puts us back in the race for the title."

Neilson said the players had studied previous matches to pinpoint why they had gone off the boil. "We sat and watched videos of the games from early in the season, just to see how the team was set up, how we got in about teams and bullied them," he added.

"We used our strength to win games early in the season and we made a conscious effort to try to get back to that. I think we had stopped doing that. We thought we could just turn up and win games.

"Looking back, at the start of the season we were winning games within the first 10 or 15 minutes. We were just flying at teams. So we got to the stage where we just expected to win every game. But you've got to earn the right to win any match.

"There won't be any danger of us falling into that trap against Celtic. I think the win against Falkirk sets us up for it. We've shown that we're back to our best, hopefully, and it's going to be a massive game.

We have to prepare well during the week and get really focused on it, hoping to put pressure on Celtic."

Neilson believes the game could be won and lost within the first 20 minutes or so and, urged on by a capacity crowd, he expects the match to start at a lightning pace.

"We know we have to start quickly against Celtic," he said. "Early in the season that was how we put pressure on teams, especially at Tynecastle. Right from the kick-off we were making challenges up the park. We've got that back now.

"Hopefully, it's not a quiet first 20 minutes against Celtic. Well, I hope it's quiet at our end but hectic in their half."

Neilson insisted, though, that the lack of aggression in the side had nothing to do with new manager Graham Rix and everything to do with the players' performing below par and letting him down.

"The players haven't done the manager justice over the last few weeks. We've been poor, so it was good to win one for him against Falkirk," said the right-back, who appeared for the Scotland Future side earlier this month. "We have got a strong squad. Mr Romanov is thinking about adding to it again and the more the merrier."

Gordon Strachan, though, is aware of the challenge facing his Celtic side. He said: "We will need to be more physical at Hearts. Sometimes, we play so much football that we give ourselves problems. Sometimes, we just have to put the ball forward, be physical for a while and get a couple of scraps."

John Hartson, one Celtic player who would certainly relish a physical test, insisted that his side are in ideal shape ahead of the game.

He said: "The game is huge. There is always a great atmosphere at Tynecastle and we will go with confidence because we are the league leaders."

Celtic will go to Edinburgh further bolstered by the news that Zico, the coach of Japan, has left Shunsuke Nakamura out of his squad for a friendly match against the USA in San Francisco next month.

The Japan coach said: "The players in Europe are in the middle of their seasons and will not be called up. I want them performing on a consistent basis at their respective clubs."

Taken from the Herald