Nine games between three competitions over 30 days.
Hearts boss Wouter Vrancken may have recently described his side’s upcoming schedule as ‘cruel’, but if the club are truly serious about shaking up the status quo in Scottish football, this is precisely the sort of challenge both the manager and his players should be striving to face on a regular basis.
It comes with the territory of being a top-level club — something Hearts have made no secret of their desire to be — and should be relished rather than feared.
Between now and the next international break in early November, the Jambos have their hands full as they fight on multiple fronts.
First up, they host St Mirren today, before getting their Europa Conference League campaign up and running midweek against Nordsjaelland.
Trips to Celtic, Trabzonspor and Motherwell come next, with Rangers visiting Tynecastle on October 28 ahead of the small matter of an Edinburgh derby to decide who will be walking out in the Premier Sports Cup final.
Hearts manager Wouter Vrancken is preparing for a hectic few weeks both at home and abroad
A visit to Swiss champions FC Thun comes next before rounding things off with a Premiership meeting with Falkirk. And breathe…
Let’s be honest, even the most optimistic of Hearts supporters will be expecting to experience a couple of bumps in the road over the coming weeks. Indeed, you wouldn’t be surprised if there were significantly more than that.
Which is why it’s imperative they win the games they really should win. Today’s opponents fall into that category.
Look, nobody in their right mind could have predicted St Mirren would be sitting just three points adrift of last season’s Premiership runners-up at this stage of the season.
Despite keeping the Buddies up by the skin of their teeth last year, it’s fair to say the permanent appointment of Craig McLeish didn’t go down particularly well with the punters.
However, he’s stuck two fingers up to his doubters, taking no time at all to completely transform Saints’ style of play and picking up wins along the way. Good on him.
St Mirren took four — incredibly costly, as it turned out — points off Hearts last season. And that was a far poorer team than will take to the field in Gorgie today.
But nevertheless, Hearts should be viewing this as a banker. Ahead of a period in which momentum is likely to swing several times, anything other than maximum points would be a huge kick in the teeth.
It will be interesting to see how Vrancken manages his squad. To his credit, he did fairly well in that regard early on in his tenure as he tried to navigate his way through six European qualifiers alongside domestic duties.
The players, for the most part, stepped up to the plate. And he will be relying on people digging deep once again for the foreseeable future.
St Mirren have been this season’s surprise package and currently sit three points off Hearts
One of the primary factors behind Hearts’ title tilt last season was Derek McInnes’ handy ability to make changes when needed without disrupting the flow and style of his side. Vrancken must be able to pull off the same trick.
So-called fringe men will have to become key men.
Speaking of which, surely the talents of record-signing Ageu will finally be put to good use. Well, apparent talents.
We have no way of knowing whether he actually possesses any given how much time he’s spent on the treatment table since making the move from Portuguese side Santa Clara last summer.
The Brazilian came off the bench in the second half of Hearts’ defeat to Kilmarnock before the break for what was his first appearance for the club since February. He’s made just eight in total, starting only once.
You would have to trust that the brigade at Jamestown Analytics know what they’re doing, but at this point, the 23-year-old has everything to prove to the rest of us.
With Blair Spittal still on the sidelines, Ageu has a chance to stake his claim for a regular spot in the Hearts midfield, and at least did his cause no harm by netting in a bounce-game victory over Dundee during the week.
Now it’s up to him to show up for the serious stuff.
Vrancken was rightly given a fair bit of slack earlier in the season as he attempted to get his ideas across against the backdrop of European shellackings at the hands of Benfica and Sturm Graz. Easier said than done.
Results on the domestic front, thankfully for him, were decent enough, with fans quickly getting on board with his attack-minded — albeit defensively suspect — approach. Getting one over on Hibernian helped too.
Brazilian midfielder Ageu has returned to fitness and is looking to kickstart his Hearts career
Managers tend to say the same thing when it comes to the international break: it always comes at the wrong time.
Vrancken may well be the exception to that.
He’s had three weeks on the training ground with the majority of his squad to really hammer home what he envisions this side looking like under his stewardship. Time he wasn’t previously afforded.
The next few weeks will put all that hard work to the test.
