CELTIC go into this afternoon's encounter at Tynecastle with a significant psychological advantage over Hearts. Granted, the Edinburgh side have proved that they can be competitive enough to split the Old Firm and deserve to be seen as championship challengers again this time around. But it is altogether something different to go all the way and actually win the title.

Celtic know what that requires. They also know that, in five of the past seven seasons including the last one, they have shown the capabilities to be the best team in the country by some margin. Hearts are pretenders to the crown, then, while Celtic are regular possessors of it. It won't be lost on either set of players at in Gorgie today that their clubs continue to operate on different levels.

I have watched Hearts on three occasions this season. They impressed me in Preston but haven't really since. I thought they did a decent enough job in the first leg of their Champions League qualifier against Siroki Brijeg, without showing any real spark to win 3-0. They were no more than efficient in closing out Wednesday's return with a scoreless draw.

They have a defence to get them results and a defensive style to make them difficult to beat. For all that owner Vladimir Romanov has applied the pressure on his players in claiming Hearts will be a young, vibrant attacking side who will show up the Old Firm as stuck in their ways, their ability to make things happen at home and in Europe rests with their two banks of four.

Craig Gordon is the best goalkeeper in Britain, in my humble opinion. He alone was responsible for the Bosnians being repelled the other evening. Stephen Pressley continues to marshal his backline superbly and in Julien Brellier and Bruno Aguiar, Hearts have two defensive midfielders adept at breaking up play and smothering attacking moves. Indeed, the Tynecastle men may well lose fewer goals than other Premierleague side again this season. But is that enough?

I don't think it is enough for Romanov, judging by his grumblings over his team's preparations following Wednesday's performance. I don't think it will necessarily be enough for the Hearts supporters, who are filling Tynecastle in the expectation of Hearts again being able to look down on at least one of the Glasgow clubs come the end of the season. And I don't know if it will be enough for Celtic to be overhauled this afternoon.

Gordon Strachan's side set out to win games through their imagination and creativity, flair and freedom. A midfield quartet of Shunsuke Nakamura, Stilian Petrov, Jiri Jarosik and Aiden McGeady provides these qualities. Allied to the frontline movement of Maciej Zurawski and Kenny Miller, Celtic had an array of options in attacking areas to secure them a 4-1 victory over Kilmarnock last weekend.

If, as likely, Miller isn't fit, the champions might not offer the same forward thrust against Valdas Ivanauskas's side. But the Lithuanian has greater injury concerns in being without Paul Hartley. The Tynecastle men do not have another player like the midfielder, and much of their sophisticated attacking drive is wrapped up in his perpetual motion. Indeed, Celtic's vulnerability at the back suggests that the home side's best hope of beating them would be one of those in-your-face performances that demands them pressing and launching the ball into their opponents' final third. The sort of unattractive display, indeed, that the owner seems to find abhorrent.

There are a couple of selection issues for Ivanauskas, or his club, to resolve. Robbie Neilson's substitution in Bosnia raised a few eyebrows. It prompted a certain Mr Hartley to phone the BBC Sportsound programme to which I was contributing and express his displeasure. I think the official explanation for replacing Robbie with Ibrahim Tall was that the last half hour of a tie already won was a good opportunity to give him a rest. That strikes me as strange when Robbie must be about the fittest player in the Hearts squad.

Meanwhile, resting players has brought painful results for Gordon Strachan. A largely shadow Celtic side seems to have been given the runaround in losing 3-0 to Nakamura's old club Yokohama in the much-debated, money-spinning friendly in Japan on Thursday. The encounter seems to have left Gordon fearful of how little he has in reserve. More immediately, many believe that Celtic trekking halfway round the world only days before travelling to Tynecastle will have left their preparations for that confrontation in a fearful mess. I don't buy into that. I know from first-hand experience that Hearts themselves had a tedious and tiring journey home from Bosnia.

A long bus journey to an airport in the early hours cost them a night's sleep and would have wearied all the players who will fill the starting berths for the home side this afternoon. Most of those who will be in the visiting team, by contrast, spent the week training at Celtic Park. Of those who started in the Nissan Stadium, only Neil Lennon, Mo Camara, Nakamura, and McGeady could possibly start at Tynecastle.

The potential damage done by Celtic's globetrotting is not to their players, but their brand. It is all very well for the club to claim that they are gaining exposure in lucrative and untapped markets by going out in Japan and America. But in performing so poorly in fielding understrength sides, they have merely received the wrong sort of exposure. Football supporters may be fascinated by big-name clubs rich in history. The world over, though, fans love winners and star players. The Americans who watched them lose 4-0 to DC United or the Japanese they treated to a grim performance the other day are more likely to have been turned off Celtic than anything else because they singularly failed to live up to hype and expectation.

Hearts will have their work cut out to avoid suffering something similar in their own backyard. The fact that the Celtic game is unquestionably less important to their ambitions than the Champions League qualifying first leg against AEK Athens on Wednesday at Murrayfield indicates that they are major players of the Scottish game. Sustaining that position will be a tall order.

Although Christophe Berra's fine form has meant the loss of Andy Webster has yet to be felt, Hearts without the Scotland defender, Rudi Skacel and Hartley can only be considerably weaker than at their very best last season.

The Romanov regime needs no less than a championship to prevent Hearts in this era being seen as Scottish football's answer to Colin Montgomerie.

Despite earning fantastic sums and topping the European order of merit an incredible number of times, the absence of a major among Monty's tournament wins means, unfairly, he is perceived as a failure. For all the incredible progress the Tynecastle side have made in the last 12 months, they will be judged as harshly if they come up short in monster matches such as the one this afternoon.

Taken from the Scotsman