Advantage Robbie after title romp

TITLE winner Robbie Neilson will this week start laying the early foundations for a crack at next season’s Premiership’s top six — as he aims to capitalise on Hearts’ two-month head-start over Hibs and Rangers.

The Tynecastle boss will summon in agents to propose new deals for his out-of-contract stars in the team who wrapped up the Championship title before Easter — and will then turn his attention to new players for an assault on the top flight. The 34-year-old believes that by clinching the title so early, he has gained a huge advantage over rivals like Hibs and Rangers, who will not know until the end of the play-offs on June 2 which division they will be playing in next season. Delighted to avoid such a scenario, Neilson believes Alan Stubbs or Stuart McCall might miss out on landing the best players available. He said: ‘If you go into the play-offs, you’re looking at June 2 before you know if you’re going to be in the Championship or the Premiership. ‘That’s a lot of time to take off your planning for the following season. With any decent players out there, if you’re having to wait until June before you can offer a contract, the good ones will be gone. ‘So I do think that winning the title so early gives us an advantage. We know where we are going, so it gives us the opportunity to get going and get in some new recruits. Our whole pre-season is all planned now, too. ‘We’re going to speak to the guys who are out of contract, get their agents in and see what we can do. ‘It’s important to try and get them tied-up because they have given us so much this season. We want to push to get into the top six next season, so if that means altering the squad a little, then so be it. But everything falls into a budget.’ Hearts strolled to the Championship title, losing just once this season, at home to Falkirk in January. Yet while Neilson will keep faith with the core of the team who secured him his first trophy as a manger, he warned them they will need to up their game in the top flight. ‘We’re not getting carried away,’ he said. ‘We’ve won the Championship, but we’re going to a higher league. We definitely need to recruit but the nucleus of the team will remain. ‘There are great players here, players with huge potential, young guys who are doing great and some older guys who have been fantastic. ‘We’ve got guys now who have won a league title and that experience will set them up well for the rest of their careers. But when you move up a level, you have to up your game. A lot of preparation will need to be done. There are things we got away with this campaign that we won’t get away with next season. ‘It will be different next year. I don’t expect the kind of season we had this year. I wasn’t expecting to go so many games undefeated or to have so many wins in a row. It will be difficult but it’s my job to make sure we are ready.’ Neilson also praised the structure at Hearts in which he works as head coach under director of football Craig Levein, with chairwoman and owner Ann Budge making all the major non-football decisions. ‘To be in this structure is great,’ he said. ‘A lot of clubs are doing it down in England now. The majority of foreign clubs have been doing it for the last 10 years. So it’s probably the way football is going nowadays. ‘Long gone are the days when a manager makes financial decisions at a club. There’s an infrastructure that a coach needs to focus on the football and not deal with the other stuff like board meetings. It gives me the opportunity to focus on the things that matter to the players and on their performance. ‘It was great to see Craig and Ann get a standing ovation from the fans at the end. They’ve been fantastic. Ann’s come in and given the club direction and togetherness. ‘The way she has handled things, be it the media — or even the football side of it — has been first class. ‘She has put her trust in Craig to get the football department correct. He has then put his trust in me to look after the first team. Everything has worked out well. I want this to be the start of something great.’