Steven Naismith sounds nervous as he shares what he thinks about Celtic ahead of Hearts game

Add as preferred source on Google

Celtic resume domestic action this Saturday with a home fixture against Steven Naismith’s Hearts in the Scottish Premiership.

Brendan Rodgers’ side have been absolutely rampant in the league in the opening four fixtures of the new season.

Rousing wins against Kilmarnock, Hibs, St Mirren and then the hammering of Rangers has Celtic sitting on top of the Scottish Premiership with 12 points, 12 goals scored and none conceded.

So when Naismith was asked how he was feeling ahead of facing Brendan Rodgers’ side at Celtic Park, it’s little wonder the Hearts boss sounded nervous.

Celtic will be Hearts’ ‘toughest game’ yet

Hearts have had a terrible start to the season. With no wins, seven goals conceded and just one point on the board, the Edinburgh side sits joint second-bottom in the league just above Kilmarnock on goal difference.

Hearts need a confidence boost to get their season going but with a visit to on-fire Celtic looming, Naismith warned his team what they need to ‘guard against’ when facing the Scottish Champions.

Naismith told Edinburgh Evening News [print edition page 48], “It’s obviously the toughest game we are going to come up against at this time.

“Celtic have shown that having a bit of patience last season paid off.

“As much as they were successful last season, for their level and their standards, I don’t think there was an agreement that they were brilliant. Everybody at Celtic saw that they wanted improvement.

“They had a really good summer, and they obviously have a great manager who has lots of experience.

“I think you can see the hard work they did last season in the tougher times, which the fans didn’t like when maybe the expectation was higher than what they got – it has paid off now.

“I think they are a team playing good, free-flowing football and they are a constant threat.

“That’s something we need to guard against.”

Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic record vs Hearts

Over two spells at Celtic so far, Brendan Rodgers has faced Hearts a total of 15 times.

The Hoops boss has been victorious on 11 occasions, drawing none and losing four with Rodgers averaging 2.18 points against the Edinburgh side.

Remarkably though, two of those four defeats came last season as Celtic struggled in the 2-0 December defeat due to injury and poor form.

Rodgers has also amassed 38 goals in all of those fixtures and conceded just 10.

However, the following 2-0 Tynecastle defeat in March this year was marred by VAR controversy where Celtic had Hyunjun Yang red carded and a ludicrous penalty awarded for a Tomoki Iwata handball.

Rodgers will be hoping VAR plays no part this weekend and that it will be Celtic’s good form that defeats Hearts to keep their place at the top of the league intact come 5pm on Saturday.