Hearts warned about Championship's toughest grounds as they prepare to hit the road

Hearts will visit the Championship’s two toughest away grounds this Friday and next when they play Ayr United and Queen of the South.

Hearts manager Robbie Neilson at training.

That’s the verdict of manager Robbie Neilson, who has won the division twice in previous spells with the Edinburgh club and Dundee United.

Hearts meet Ayr at Somerset Park this Friday before travelling to Palmerston Park to face Queens the following Friday. Both matches kick off at 7.45pm and will be shown live on BBC Scotland.

Neilson was delighted with his team’s last two results, a 4-0 win at Raith Rovers and a 1-0 home win against Dunfermline. Those followed an underwhelming 3-2 loss against Raith at Tynecastle Park.

However, he has cautioned players that their next two fixtures are among the toughest of the season as they look to extend a 12-point advantage at the top of the league.

“The response since the first Raith Rovers game at Tynecastle has been brilliant,” Neilson told the Evening News. “We spoke about getting back on the horse straight away because you are going to lose games in this league. It’s how you respond to it.

“We’ve managed to get six points out of six. Now we have two very tough games at Ayr United and Queen of the South. In my opinion, they potentially the two toughest venues to go to in the Championship.

“It’s two Friday night games, Ayr on the grass and Queens on the astro. We need to get prepared for that and make sure we try to get three points again.”

Neilson will not complain if Hearts need to grind out results like last week’s against Dunfermline.

“I’ve won this league twice before and, believe me, there are a lot of games like that where you just need to grind it. The surfaces aren’t going to be conducive to brilliant, free-flowing football,” he said.

“Teams go direct, it’s knockdowns, it’s free-kicks, it’s corners, it’s second balls. You need to keep a foothold in the game and we were in that position last Saturday.

“Credit to Dunfermline, I thought they started the game really well. Craig Gordon made some great saves and Michael Smith helped keep us in it.

“Their keeper had some good saves as well. Ultimately, we had that bit of quality at the end from Jamie Walker.”

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