Hearts boss Robbie Neilson plans to give Lawrence Shakland every second he can to win his fitness race for the crucial clash with Celtic.
The Scottish Cup showdown is the second time this week the Jambos have faced off against Ange Postecoglou's men, with Celtic running out 3-1 winners in the Scottish Premiership despite a battling Hearts' performance at Celtic Park. However. Neilson will hope to turn the tables on the Hoops at Tynecastle with a bumper crowd expected in Gorgie for the clash - with captain Shankland potentially leading the line.
Shankland missed the midweek clash with a niggling injury but Neilson insists the striker will be allowed as much time as possible to make the key quarter final. The Hearts boss said of the 21-goal striker: "Lawrence Shankland didn’t train today so he’ll be touch and go. We’ll make a game-time decision on him. He’s such an important player for us so he has to be bang on if he’s going to play. A couple of the other ones will make it so there will be a couple of changes but not a huge amount of changes."
Neilson is hoping to pile the pressure on in the Tynecastle cauldron: “We want to be on the front foot, we want to be aggressive and we did it the other night. We have to do that on Saturday. Playing a team back-to-back means there is not a lot of time to alter things between games. The players have had a training session and a half session but some of that time has been spent on recovery from Wednesday. We will stick to our principles and how we want to play, but Celtic are such a good team. If is important we don’t lose goals and, if you do that, you have a chance.”
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