Robbie Neilson has called on the Hearts support to get right behind his side as they bid to knock Celtic out of the Scottish Cup this weekend.
The duo went head to head in the first of two meetings last night at Parkhead with the Hoops running out 3-1 winners in Glasgow. Josh Ginnelly had headed the away side into the lead but goals from Daizen Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi and Sead Haksabanovic make sure the three points remained in the east end and maintained the champions' relentless charge towards back to back title wins under Ange Postecoglou.
Hearts remain five clear of city rivals Hibs in the race for third spot after Lee Johnson's men suffered a heavy home defeat to Rangers. Neilson has hailed the performance of his side as 'outstanding' for 80 minutes with a couple of slack moments ending in goals against. But looking ahead to Saturday, Neilson hopes to have 17,000 Jambos at Tynecastle roaring his side on and he reckons that amazing backing they get in Gorgie game after game can help them see the game through until the very end.
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He told the Hearts official website: “We need the fans on Saturday. The players were outstanding tonight with the few hundred fans that we had here tonight, so if we can get 17,000 home fans behind us on Saturday, I think that will help us see the game through until the end."
On the performance last night, he explained: "Ultimately, we lost the game. So, I get frustrated when we say it was a valiant effort. We wanted to come here and try and win.
"I thought for 80 minutes we were outstanding. We were in the game, we got the goal and then we had a couple of slack moments and they get their two goals.
“I just thought in the last 15 minutes we lost our energy. We didn’t get up the park and put pressure on them and they started to pop it about and get the third goal.
“Some of our play tonight was outstanding. We popped it about really well. I have watched a lot of games at Celtic Park over the years and some of our passages of play tonight were as good as I’ve seen any opposition team play here especially in Scotland. So, we have to take some positives from tonight but ultimately we’ve lost a game."
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