Hearts ready for late title drama at Celtic as Derek McInnes leans on senior men

Scottish Premiership goes to the last day in GlasgowDrama is guaranteed in Glasgow’s east end tomorrow and Hearts are fully prepared for another late show. They have scored numerous last-minute goals in tense and pivotal situations this season to manoeuvre themselves into a position one point clear at the top of the Scottish Premiership. Opponents Celtic, themselves no stranger to stoppage-time celebrations, are also prepared to fight to the death, no matter how late, in an effort to win the league.Scottish football hasn’t seen anything like this for 35 years since Rangers beat Aberdeen 2-0 at Ibrox. Hearts will win their first Scottish top-flight title since 1960 if they avoid defeat in Glasgow. They are currently one point ahead of Celtic at the top of the Premiership table and are eager to make history at Celtic Park. The hosts know they need to win or the league title goes to Tynecastle.A crowd of 60,000 will watch it all unfold and only 752 of them will be Jambos. Hearts head coach Derek McInnes will struggle to communicate instructions during play because of the noise, so his pre-match message must be concise and impactful. Thereafter, it is down to senior players to take charge and show the required leadership.“I think there’s always more responsibility. I’ve always leaned more on my senior players,” said McInnes. “I think it’s their job to help all my players, but I think the senior players have always felt that they’re a bit more than just players for me. In a game like that they have to show certain traits, and they’ve done that all season. So I’m just asking them to be what they’ve been all season. It’s not really any different, but getting the message across sometimes — that’s why they need clarity. It needs to be really clear what we’re doing.”Hearts won’t be instructed to play for a draw. That would be too dangerous an approach at Celtic Park. They beat Falkirk 3-0 on Wednesday but Celtic’s controversial 3-2 win at Motherwell - courtesy of one of those late goals from the penalty spot - created a scenario where the visitors can win the league with a point tomorrow.“I think the draw part of it comes into it maybe later on in the game, and particularly maybe when you’re looking at substitutes,” explained McInnes. “I even thought the other day against Falkirk, when there were different outcomes, did we think in detail about what was happening at Fir Park? Would goal difference come into it? Would it not? Obviously, the three points were the most important part of it.“You think at one point, when Falkirk are really going 4-2-4: 'Is it worth putting an extra defender on there just to make sure we get three points?' There was also a feeling that it might still come down to goal difference, and we wanted to keep those attacking players on the pitch and try and get as many goals as possible.“It’s funny. We see Blair Spittal’s celebration after scoring. He’s running away waiting for his team-mates, and they’re all like: 'Get back, ya clown. There’s a kick-off.' But I think the only thing I can put it down to is that we’re going there to play, and you’ve got to perform enough to try and win a game.“The only thing I can compare it to is maybe in Europe, when you’re either playing the first or second leg and you know you can get a team back at home. At some stage in the game you might think a draw’s not the worst result, but I always think it’s dangerous to go out with that mindset, even in that circumstance.”Regardless how late the match runs, how much stoppage-time is applied, Hearts are prepared to run until the last tune of the final whistle. “There’s late, and there’s late,” acknowledged McInnes. “Both teams have shown a capacity to win late. I think that demonstrates a lot and is quite significant for both teams, to be honest. I think it shows a lot of strong, firm traits.“Title-winning teams over the years have always had that, and I quite like that from early on this season we’ve had that. I quite like that we’ve acted and behaved like that. We’ve never known when we’re beaten. We’ve never settled for a point, and we’ve always gone the full way. I think it demonstrates a lot of things: Winning mentality, fitness of the players, squad readiness and squad depth.”Hearts supporters have been living on their nerves for weeks and McInnes knows how they feel. “I don’t think anything I can say is going to make the fans feel any easier about things or less nervous. You’d rather have this than a last-ditch fight to stay in the league and things like that,” he said.“The Hearts fans over the years have had a lot to contend with — from trying to save the club, to dealing with difficult owners, to relegations and real challenges. As difficult as it is, let’s try and enjoy seeing Hearts being talked about positively and in such a good light. Hopefully it can be a brilliant day for the club tomorrow.”Celtic’s late penalty award at Motherwell drew criticism from across Britain on Wednesday and Thursday. McInnes had his say, calling it ‘disgusting’ and admitting he felt everyone was against Hearts after they were denied two penalties at Fir Park just days beforehand. “Maybe domestically people say: 'It’d be great for Hearts to win the league,' and they really want us to do well until they think, 'well, maybe they are going to win.' Then all of a sudden you see they don’t really want us to win it.“I think it’s been such a good story for us this season. I do think there’s been a good light shone on the Scottish league over the last wee while. It’s unusual in a sense, and there’s been a lot more positive chat and a lot more comment from people who wouldn’t normally comment on Scottish football. Hopefully that continues regardless of what happens tomorrow, and it stays about the football and not anything else.“I think it’s important to remember that when you look back at decisions, every team has been fortunate at times and every team has suffered throughout a campaign. That’s part and parcel of football. My comment about 'us against the world', sometimes it feels that way, and it has over the last couple of games. But that’s not the important thing now. The important thing is tomorrow and trying to take the opportunity that’s there for us. We deserve that opportunity. I think that has to be said. We haven’t fluked this. For us to be on 80 points going into the last game is a huge effort from everybody.”Hearts have privately sought some clarity on refereeing decisions, although McInnes did not want to be drawn on that issue. “No, no. It’s something for the club to deal with, so I’ve no real comment on that. I already said yesterday morning I wasn’t interested in debating it or talking about it. I just really wanted to talk about football.”