Levein: Scotland will miss Rodgers
● Hearts boss understands lure of England ● Now he welcomes the return of Lennon
argue that the Premier League is the biggest league in the world.”
The news that he will be replaced, on an interim basis at the moment, by Levein’s former derby counterpart Neil Lennon, was greeted as good news by the Gorgie manager who is happy to see his old nemesis back in the game so soon after his Easter Road departure, but he doesn’t believe it will impact one way or the other on this evening’s fixture.
“It would be good to see him back in so quickly. I get on well with him. Good for him. He knows the club,” said Levein.
“They’ve got good players and they’ve got a way of playing so I don’t see anything changing. Brendan’s signed players over the last three years to play in a certain manner. To do anything different, be more direct, is going to take a different style of player. So I think they will do the same thing.
“They are on a good run just now so their momentum and belief is quite high at the moment. We are still preparing to play against a really good Celtic side and we need to be at our best and keep our foot to the floor as long as we possibly can. I’m not going to change anything. Obviously there is a little bit of a hiccup because Brendan is not going to be there. But Celtic will just be the same as they were going to be under Brendan.”
That could present a problem to Hearts, unless they can recapture the form they showed back in August, when they bettered the Parkhead side at Tynecastle and gave the
0 Hearts manager Craig Levein says Celtic will be just as tough to beat without Brendan Rodgers.
double treble winners something to chase down in the league. It also offered Hearts’ summer signings a glimpse of how good things could be in front of a buoyant sellout crowd at Tynecastle, according to midfielder Olly Lee.
“The game against them in August was a real welcome to Tynecastle for all the new boys,” said Lee. “It was rocking and it was one of my favourite days since coming to the club. Hopefully we can get back to that and kick on to the end of the season.
“People are talking about [Rodgers leaving] in the Hearts dressing room and saying ‘what’s going on?’ But it’s important that we keep the focus on what we do. We can’t control whether Brendan Rodgers is Celtic manager or not. There’s no way to know whether that would be better for us or worse. We just need to go into the game looking forward to it, at a packed-out Tynecastle, and try to get the win.” Derek Mcinnes hopes Shay Logan may yet have a part to play for Aberdeen this season despite being rushed in for ankle surgery.
It was feared the right-back might miss the remainder of the campaign after being told he had to go under the knife.
Dons boss Mcinnes has confirmed he is still looking to bring in a free agent for defensive cover after the 31-year-old was joined on the casualty list by Tommie Hoban.
But while Hoban has definitely played his final game this term, Mcinnes has been boosted by the news that the former Brentford defender could be back in action by midapril.