Steven Naismith: What Hearts must do to avoid setting up for failure against Rangers

Head coach explains what is at stake and why opportunities await his team

The Hearts head coach Steven Naismith hopes to discover how quickly his players learn lessons when they travel to Rangers on Sunday. After last week's 4-1 home defeat by Celtic, Naismith is intrigued to see what level of improvement - particularly defensively - manifests at Ibrox.

"I think that has been the process this season at times," he said. "In games we’ve lost sloppy goals, we’ve gone on and built a decent run of performances, taking away results. In the past it has shown we have learned our lesson but this will be a big test as, for me, that was our most disappointing performance last week."

Hearts face Rangers then host Livingston both in the Premiership before returning to Glasgow for the Viaplay Cup semi-final against Rangers a week on Sunday. "You reference it and understand it’s busy and it’s a condensed period," said Naismith.

"What you have at the end of it - in terms of your points in the league and you could also be in the final of a competition - it’s an intense, busy time. But it’s a good opportunity for us as a group and for the players individually that they’ll inevitably want to be playing in these games."

Asked if jerseys are at stake for the second meeting with Rangers at Hampden Park, Naismith delivered a candid reply. "They are, yes, but also for the Livi game. We’re now at the point where we’re getting a couple of the injuries back and the selection in certain positions there is more competition for places, which we’ve not had in the last month, six weeks.

With it being a busy period and the time of games they are, it’s definitely an opportunity for people to stake a claim to be playing."

Two of those returning from injury are goalkeeper Craig Gordon and defender Craig Halkett. Both are back in full training, with Gordon playing 90 minutes against Rangers B in a friendly on Thursday.

"The two of them being back on the training pitch, you can feel it, you can hear it when you’re doing training," revealed Naismith. "The voices that are there, it’s just instructions. Minimum you are passing on instructions and then the other part of it is they are setting standards, so that definitely does make a difference and it helps."

New Rangers manager Philippe Clement took charge for only the second time on Thursday evening against Sparta Prague. That followed a 4-0 debut win against Hibs last Saturday. "They had the game last week at home, which helps as you imagine they will be pretty similar. We’ll see what we can take from that [European game]. But just like we don’t know much about them, it’s a short period of time for the manager to be in.

"As he’s said, he’s not going to change every part of the team or the structure of what they’re doing. We’ve watched them and have an understanding of what we want to do. In general, we need to defend better than last week, especially against better teams.

"When we’ve got the ball, we’re in control, we decide what is happening. It’s not rushed and we're not just kicking it out the park and deciding we’re going to defend for 90 minutes because you are setting yourself up for failure."