Stephen Kingsley reckons Hearts are back in business and are going to keep the boot down for the rest of the season.
The Jambos have roared back to form after suffering a minor blip in the month of February on the back of their blistering start to the season.
Back-to-back victories over St Mirren and Aberdeen have all but ended the race for third spot, with Robbie Neilson’s men 12 points clear of Livingston.
The middle section of the table is a logjam but Hearts are in the clear.
And Kingsley reckons the club have shrugged off their mini slump to now be ready to race for the finish line.
The defender, who thumped in his fifth goal of the campaign in Wednesday’s 2-0 win over the Dons, said: “During a season, everyone knows you’re going to have these moments, these spells when it’s not going so good.
“Obviously we had that ourselves. We knew results hadn’t been great before the St Mirren game and we needed to do something about it.
“We know it’s only normal to have these spells throughout the season but the most important thing is the reaction to it.
“You can’t let it dwell for the rest of the season or allow bad habits to come in.
“I felt we showed that on Saturday, even though they went down to 10 men.
“The performance, even before the man got sent off, was good and then this game was a really dominant performance against a good team.
“They’re sitting quite low in the table but when you look at their players and the team they are, that was a really good performance from us.”
Hearts are practically home and dry in the fight to be best of the rest but there will be no let-up at Tynecastle.
Kingsley added: “Absolutely, there can’t be any complacency.
“It’s essential that we don’t look too far ahead.
“We’ve just been through a dry spell, so I don’t think the boys will look at this now and think, ‘Aye, we’ve done our jobs’. I don’t think we can.
“And knowing the characters we have in that dressing room, I don’t think we’ll allow it to happen. We just need to keep kicking on, ticking off games as they come and try to finish with as many points as we can.”
Kingsley capped his superb show against Jim Goodwin’s Dons with a bullet header for the second goal on the hour. The former Swansea star is more renowned for his free-kicks but admits he’s hoping to chip in with a few more goals from open play during the run-in.
Kingsley said: “It just came at such a good time for us and kind of took the wind out their sails a wee bit. We were really happy to go 2-0 up and kill the game essentially.
“I scored with a header in the 5-2 game against Dundee United. Those are my only two goals that haven’t been set-pieces – three free-kicks and then those two headers – but hopefully I can get more.
“I’ve only scored once from open play and that was last season against Dundee, the second goal in my first game. Now a goal in open play would be nice.”
Neilson wasn’t too chuffed with Lewis Ferguson winning a late spot-kick in Gorgie.
The Dons midfielder took a tumble in the box and even though Craig Gordon saved, it still had the home bench fuming.
Kingsley reckons VAR can’t come quickly enough to sort out some of these shenanigans.
He said: “It was unlucky for Nathan Atkinson and if it wasn’t a penalty, then these are the things that VAR will deal with when it eventually comes in.
“These are the things that can be ironed out. But it was such a dominant performance and other than that penalty, they only had two or three long-range efforts that were dealt with really well by Craigy. That was it.
“Obviously if it was a dive, then that’s disappointing. But we coped with the pressure of the situation and the game very, very well.
“If VAR is going to help the referees make the right decisions, then I’m in favour of it. We’ve been on the receiving end of a couple of bad decisions this year.
“It happens. It’s only natural. They have VAR down in England now and if it does come in up here, that’s brilliant.
“And if it does give refs a helping hand, that’s fantastic.”
