John McGlynn heaps transfer praise on Hearts as former boss has hunch over Jambos in title race home stretch

John McGlynn senses Hearts are only going to get stronger down the title run in stretch after they defeated his Falkirk side 1-0.

Islam Chesnokov’s first half strike was enough to seal three key Premiership points for Derek McInnes’ team who are loaded with injury and fitness concerns, but are still battling on at the top of the league. It proved a response to defeat against Rangers last weekend and former Tynecastle boss McGlynn has been impressed by recruitment work, boss McInnes and Tynecastle form at his ex-side.

With the likes of Beni Baningime, Lawrence Shankland and Cammy Devlin missing from Saturday’s game, he anticipates Hearts will grow in strength as the race for glory approaches the final bend. McGlynn said: "You've got to give Hearts loads and loads of credit, enormous credit for where they are.

John McGlynn on Hearts title chances

“The recruitment from Hearts has been great, and at home they've got a great record. Derek said last week they had a couple of winnable games, and if he goes and gets six points from those games, he's got the first part of that, double up, then you can see what happens with the other two.

“They're still in that top position, they've done the first part of that, of course there's more games to go, but it's up to the others now to go and see what they do, and I think they're going to be there, they're going to be there to the end, they've got players to come back from injury.

"Beni Baningime didn't play , and the Ageu boy went out in the warm-up, so they've got their issues, but more or less everyone has. We know that Lawrence Shankland is coming back and Cammy Devlin is coming back too. They might just get stronger as the season goes on, and that might just help them."

What are Falkirk aims for the rest of the season

Hearts will meet Falkirk again in the post split top six fixtures if the Bairns make it there, and that is the aim for boss McGlynn. He said: "Absolutely, you better believe it. That's it. We'll be back at home next week, and we're fairly decent at home. We want to consolidate this position, we want to do it ourselves, we don't want it (making the top six) by other teams beating other teams.

“We want to really get points on the board that we've made ourselves. We've got a nice cushion there, but that's all it is, it can disappear very quickly if we don't go and do our own part. We were frustrated with our performance, we didn't really do enough to win the game. We got ourselves into some good positions in the first half, in the final third, but created very little from it, which is disappointing because we had some good play to reach those positions. Hearts deserved to win the game, absolutely.

“We put up a fight, but we needed a bit more than what we actually offered here. But it says a lot about us that we are disappointed coming away from the league leaders after narrowly losing 1-0. We are frustrated at our own performance, we know that Hearts are at the top of the table, we know they're going for the league, but we've got our own ambitions and standards that we don't really quite get to. We were too naive. There was just a slight lack of conviction in the final third.”