Hearts' plan of attack against Hibs after losing to Rangers

Head coach Steven Naismith expects a very different encounter in the Edinburgh derby at Tynecastle

Hearts are already planning their response to Saturday's 5-0 defeat against Rangers with Hibs in their sights on Wednesday night. The season's third Edinburgh derby takes place under floodlights at Tynecastle Park and head coach Steven Naismith is looking for a determined reaction from his side after the weekend.

The substandard display and capitulation at Ibrox ended Hearts' 12-match unbeaten run. Naismith wants to see a positive riposte against Hibs in front of a passionate home support, urging his players to show the kind of pace and power they encountered in Glasgow.

"Ideally, we will start Wednesday's game like Rangers started on Saturday," he told the Edinburgh News. "The crowd were up, lively and noisy, and the players started fast. That's ideally what we will start like on Wednesday.

"I'd imagine our performance will be better, it needs to be better. All the success we have had this season has come from us being good in possession and solid defensively out of possession. That's where we let ourselves down on Saturday but I'm pretty confident we will be back at it on Wednesday."

READ MORE: Zander Clark explains taking the Hearts captain's armband

The previous two Edinburgh derbies this season have produced a draw and a Hearts victory and Naismith is confident Hibs will be a very different proposition to Rangers. "We expect it to be more like the games we have come up against in the 12-game [unbeaten] run. Our preparation will go into that. Lessons to be learned from Saturday are that giving up good chances to quality players is going to cost you, and that's what happened.

"We will analyse Saturday more for when we are back playing against the Old Firm in Glasgow. There won't be many games where we need to deal with that atmosphere and how quickly they started because their confidence is high. We will have time to reflect and analyse Saturday, but Wednesday is a totally different game."

It remains to be seen if Australian defender Kye Rowles will retain his starting place against Hibs. He was substituted at half-time against Rangers with Hearts 3-0 down. "We changed to a back four so we had to make a change. We wanted to get another attacker on to give us a chance to potentially get back into the game," explained Naismith.

"We got a bit of control in the first half but didn't really have brilliant chances. We wanted to get a bit more threat. You open yourself up a bit but the level of goals we conceded were poor from our point of view."