St Johnstone manager Steve Lomas knows Hearts will not be short of motivation for tomorrow's Clydesdale Bank Premier League clash but insists his own side will be just as determined to seal the win.
The Jambos are seeking their first victory since manager John McGlynn parted company with the club last week, with first-team coach Gary Locke being placed in interim charge of team affairs.
The Edinburgh outfit will be looking for a positive result following the weekend defeat to Motherwell, with players also keen to stake a claim ahead of the Scottish Communities League Cup final against St Mirren later this month.
But Saints - sitting fifth in the table - are keen to pick up the wins that will secure their spot in the top half of the table before the league split.
Lomas said: "Gary Locke is a very respected former player and coach. He's a great lad and I'm sure the lads will want to play for him.
"They've got a cup final coming up and maybe some of the more experienced boys have got a point to prove.
"There are various reasons why they'll want to do well but we can only focus on what we can do.
"We can only focus on our performance, our defending and our attacking.
"It's a great opportunity for us but it's never easy to go to Tynecastle. It's a tough venue and we will have to perform."
He added: "The league's so tight and I think that's been a positive this year that everybody can beat everybody.
"Everybody has to perform because everybody can beat anybody on the day.
"If you don't perform in the 90 minutes, you get beat. It's as simple as that."
Hearts said they had more than 50 applications and notes of interest in the job in the first 48 hours that followed McGlynn's departure.
McGlynn left Tynecastle after Hearts slipped to second bottom of the SPL but Lomas had some sympathy for the former Jambos boss.
He said: "It's a classic case of giving somebody a remit - blood young players while cutting the budget.
"But, once there is a little bit of heat coming from the fans, the manager is the one who gets the bullet when really John McGlynn has done nothing wrong.
"He's fulfilled his remit and more."
Saints were held to a draw by bottom side Dundee in their last outing but Lomas has no complaints about their recent efforts.
He said: "A point away from home in the SPL isn't something you need to bounce back from.
"Yes, we were disappointed but there's nothing we can do about it.
"All we can do is focus on the next game but I don't think it's a case of bouncing back."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article