Hearts manager Craig Levein believes his team have a good chance of ending Celtic’s clean sweep of trophies under Brendan Rodgers when they face the Hoops in the Betfred Cup semi-finals.
Levein feels Sunday’s Murrayfield encounter will be a special occasion and he has backed his Ladbrokes Premiership leaders to meet it head on.
Hearts bounced back from their first defeat of the season, against Rangers, with two wins in four days to move six points clear of the champions.
And he joins the huge Hearts support which is set to descend on the rugby venue in having high expectations for his players.
“There’s one team going through and we’ve got a fairly good chance it will be us,” Levein said.
“I just think we have prepared properly, we will do our best I’m sure. We have 28,000 Hearts supporters minimum to come along and back us, so there are a lot of things that make me feel confident. But again we have to turn up on the day and perform.
“We are a quarter of the way through the season and we are top of the league, so with that comes expectation and quite rightly so. Our players have gained confidence from league performances and also performances in this competition. And also I think we are better than last season. So I would expect us to do better, never mind our supporters.
“I think we’ve got a good chance. I would never say anything is guaranteed in football, but the players are confident. Our games against Celtic recently have been close, we have recent experience of winning, and both teams have got injuries and are missing some players. I think we have a good chance of winning this game.”
Hearts have so far overcome the long-term loss of central defensive duo Christophe Berra and John Souttar and striker Uche Ikpeazu but Levein accepts Sunday poses a new test.
“This is something a little bit different,” he said. “It’s a different type of challenge than the league games up until now. And I’m interested as well in seeing how they cope.
“I feel confident because, just about everything that’s been thrown their way, they have managed to find solutions. So I’m hopeful we can do the same again on Sunday. One thing is for certain, we will do our absolute utmost to win the game.”
Hearts trained at Murrayfield on Friday morning after playing four games there last season, but Levein expects Sunday to be a completely different experience of the stadium.
“The little spell where we played at Murrayfield, we played Rangers and there were about 28,000 there and it was a really good atmosphere,” he said. “So double that should make it sensational. I like the stadium, I think it will feel like a really special occasion, which it is.”
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