Bring on the Hibees, roars Hearts star Tullberg
Published Date:
15 October 2008
By BARRY ANDERSON
MIKE TULLBERG insisted today that Hearts are ready and waiting for Sunday's visit to Easter Road, where they intend returning to winning ways at the expense of their Capital rivals.
Three defeats from four league matches prior to the international break upset the momentum gathered at Tynecastle during the season's early weeks, however, Tullberg stressed that motivation will not be a problem against Hibs.
The Danish striker, on loan from Reggina, recently returned from injury and believes his colleagues are fully attuned to the task in hand – earning victory over their Edinburgh neighbours to restore a winning feeling.
"I'm aware it's a big match and if you cannot get yourself up for this match then you have a problem," said Tullberg. "It should be like that for every game but, of course, this is a derby and it's fun to play games like this.
"I have heard a lot about the Hearts-Hibs rivalry and I'm looking forward to it. You have to be ready for every game and I'm 100 per cent sure everybody will be ready for Hibs. We are aware we need to go out and produce a good result."
Hearts confirmed today that they have released injury-plagued midfielder Mirsad Beslija.
The Bosnian signed for the Tynecastle club for a record fee of £800,000 in January 2006 but went on to feature in just 14 competitive games for the first team.
Beslija spent last season on loan with the Belgian club Sint- Truiden but made little impact due to a series of fitness problems.
The Bosnian winger returned to Hearts harbouring hopes that he would be able to resurrect his Tynecastle career but sustained knee ligament damage shortly after the start of pre-season training in July and subsequently missed all friendly matches and the ten-day tour of Germany.
His last appearance for Hearts was in June last year in a friendly match against FC Tavriya.
Meanwhile, the Tynecastle side have announced that they will have to hold a ballot of away supporters ahead of next month's SPL clash with Celtic.
Hearts had initially earmarked 2000 tickets for away supporters – although that figure may increase to around 3500 depending on home ticket sales – but received 4500 applications from Celtic fans.
A spokesman for Hearts thanked Celtic supporters for their co-operation and said: "We've processed all applications on to our system and will begin balloting on Tuesday, October 21, to determine which supporters will receive tickets.
"The ballot will be random and independent Celtic supporters will all have an opportunity to receive tickets, regardless of when they applied during the pre- application period, as long as it was before 5.00pm on Monday.
"We'd like to thank Celtic supporters for working so efficiently with Hearts to make this a very smooth process so far."
The full article contains 478 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
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Last Updated:
15 October 2008 9:50 AM
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Source:
Edinburgh Evening News
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Location:
Edinburgh
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Related Topics:
Heart of Midlothian FC