Robbie Neilson has revealed he won't have a set starting team at Hearts this season due to the number of games facing the capital club in the upcoming campaign.
The Tynecastle side will be juggling domestic matters with European football with a guarantee of eight games on the big stage. The Jambos enter the Europa League play-off round following a third place finish in the Premiership behind Celtic and Rangers and their involvement in the Scottish Cup Final. That leaves the Gorgie side just potentially 180 minutes away from the group stages of the competition.
But should they suffer defeat in the two-legged tie they will drop into the Europa Conference League group stages and play a minimum of six games in their section. Hearts face 26 games before the World Cup break and due to the high volume, Neilson sees little point in trying to set on an XI. Players will be in and out of the team with the key goal in pre-season to get the whole squad as fit as possible.
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Hearts have already faced four pre-season friendlies against FC Europa, East Fife, Spartans and Bonnyrigg Rose but they will now step it up a level with four English opposition matches to come starting tonight with Tranmere Rovers as they bid to get ready for the regular occurrence of Thursday-Sunday football in the new campaign.
Speaking to Edinburgh Evening News, Neilson said: “This season it is not going to be a set XI.
“We’ve got so many games that we will be moving players in and out, so we’re just trying to get them all as fit as we can during pre-season.”
He continued: “We’re building it up gradually, but the next four games are back to back. “We want to build up the standard of opposition, but also build up the fitness levels.
"We’re going to have to do that during the season, play Thursday, Sunday, Thursday, Sunday in two blocks of six weeks. We need to get used to it.”
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