Looking ahead to Sunday’s clash with Rangers, Derek McInnes is targeting further improvement from his side as the Jambos look to pick up another victory.
It’s Danny Röhl’s improving Rangers that visit Gorgie this weekend and the Hearts head coach described the match as a brilliant one to be involved in.
The men in maroon come into the match on the back of two away victories against Celtic and Falkirk and with two challenging matches to come to end 2025, McInnes admits six points would mean a lot.
Speaking to the media at the pre-match press conference, he said:
“Well of course it would mean a lot, it's tough games. I think for us we've got off to a strong start, we've probably exceeded expectations from the start of the season for the supporters and probably surprised a few.
“We went on a little sticky spell there and all we want to do is try and get back to unbeaten runs and winning runs and if you can get a number of them throughout the season and make them quite significant then hopefully, it helps us in what we're trying to do.
“There's always a different test, but it's a brilliant game, we're just looking at trying to get through these next five games, which completes the two rounds of fixtures and seeing where we're at.
“From our point of view, we're enjoying what we're doing at the minute, we don't feel a pressure. There's a couple of teams in the league, one being ourselves, who are probably exceeding what they'd hoped at the start of the season and the consistency that we've shown has been really pleasing.
“These are brilliant games to be involved in, we're exactly where we want to be in terms of that. For us to maintain it, we have to acknowledge that individually, we need to improve and as players and as a team we're going to have to keep improving.”
The Jambos are three from three against the Old Firm this season and McInnes admits everyone is able to take some extra belief from those previous games into Sunday.
“Rangers and Celtic have huge advantages over the rest of us, including ourselves. They spend a level of money that we can't, they spend millions putting a squad together, they spend thousands a week on wages which we and others can't.
“So, any time you can overcome that type of opponent you need to do a lot right. It's still the same three points for beating anybody else but I think if players or the supporters need a bit more belief or a bit more encouragement then winning these types of games only helps with that.
“I want us to stay exactly where we are. I'm enjoying where we are. You've got to enjoy this, and I keep saying to the players, you've done so well to get here at the minute. We just have to understand that we've done a lot of right to get to where we're at and we have to do so much more to keep us there.”
You can watch Derek's press conference in full on Hearts TV.
