Naismith wants Hearts to go toe to toe with Celtic

Hearts head coach Steven Naismith wants his side to cause Celtic problems and not just "survive" their Tynecastle encounter this weekend.

The Tynecastle side overcame a challenging start to their campaign and won three of their last five matches before the international break. The manager now reckons his team has what it takes to compete against the champions.

“At the start of the game, who is going to stamp their authority on it?” said the Hearts boss.

“You’re either going to go into an attacking point or a defensive point.

“You need to try and get the advantage of that. Being disciplined out of possession is also important.

"The biggest thing that the Old Firm have is they have real quality where you can make one mistake in the game and it will cost you because their quality in the final third is so good.

“We also need to be confident in possession because I’ve played in games where if you’re not good in possession and you keep losing possession quickly, it becomes a long afternoon. You need to be brave and comfortable on the ball when you get it.

“This is a different game to when we played Motherwell at home, Dundee away or Kilmarnock home or away. It’s going to give me an indication – as a group and individually – of whether we can compete at this level.

“All the signs since I’ve been involved with the coaching side of it here is that we can compete. We are growing, we’re getting better.

"It’s not just about surviving in the game and hoping to counter them, it’s about causing them problems when we have the ball and being disciplined and resilient when we don’t have it.”