Heart of Midlothian need to be better against Celtic than they have been in their previous two games to give themselves any chance of success over the Scottish champions.
You have to back to the 2011/12 season for the last time the men in maroon defeated the Glasgow side twice in the same campaign. Defend as they did against Rangers and it will likely result in another chastening defeat. Put in a similar display against Hibs and Celtic will have the quality to take advantage of big moments that the Easter Road side didn't.
Looking back at the draw with Hibs on Wednesday night, there are two key areas where improvement is required: Pressing when the opposition are playing out from the back and decision-making in the final third.
Let's explore those aspects in more detail.
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Hearts pressure
Firstly, it is worthwhile going back to the previous Tynecastle Park derby. Hearts were very effective at stopping Hibs building from the back.
That wasn't the case this time around.
Hearts were happy to let the Hibs centre-backs have the ball. Lawrence Shankland would tend to split them with Kenneth Vargas dropping onto one of the centre midfielders and Cammy Devlin pushing up on the other one. Wide men Alan Forrest and Scott Fraser would split the space between the centre-backs and the Hibs full-backs who took up high and wide positions. The first time this happened, see below, David Marshall kicked long to Jordan Obita who had moved higher and competed with Nathaniel Atkinson for a high ball. That's absolutely fine. The same happened a few minutes later, this time Will Fish hitting it long.
An effective press requires structure and discipline. If one man doesn't quite do his job it can quite easily falter. As it did in the eighth minute. A simple movement from Nathan Moriah-Welsh away from Vargas allowed Hibs to get out easily with Lewis Miller then attempting a difficult pass when Hibs had four forwards against five Hearts players.
A few minutes later David Marshall was able to clip a pass to Jordan Obita who was in an area behind the players pressing with just Cammy Devlin in the midfield zone to cover. Very shortly after Vargas was unsure to press Fish with Calem Nieuwenhof and Shankland offering instruction. Vargas backed off and Shankland then took on the mantle of closing down the Hibs defender but there was no support. Look at the space. Fish was able to run out of defence to the half-way line.
There was a tweak to the system at half-time. Scott Fraser moved into No.10 role with Vargas going wide. Still, however, Hibs were able to get out without too much hassle. Rather than a hopeful long ball, Fish had time to size up and hit a diagonal. The next time Fish got it he had fewer options and had to play a longer pass that was more difficult for a teammate to get.
The disappointing aspect will be how the team didn't make it more difficult for Rocky Bushiri who was playing out on the left-hand side of defence and is not known for his distribution. Below he was given the time and space to play a pass up the line to get Obita into a good position.
And just past the hour mark. Nieuwenhof presses this time but not quickly enought to stop a pass that got Hibs into a very dangerous situation in the final third.
Hearts defended well when Hibs put pressure on but they will have to try and tighten up to prevent Celtic from getting into the positions Hibs were able to.
Decision-making
As we noted in the StatsBomb data dump, Hibs created more chances and better chances. Hearts struggled to fashion efforts in prime zones within the box, while a number of shots were blocked.
Encouragingly the team got the ball into dangerous areas but were let down by decision making.
The first of those is different to the rest. One of the best openings Hearts had in the first half arrived after 17 minutes. The team worked the ball well down the left to Alan Forrest. Look at the space that could have been attacked. Vargas didn't recognise the opportunity he had in front of him. Forrest had to dribble further before a hopeful cross.
It wasn't the Costa Rican's best night. Three times in the second half he arguably took the wrong decision. The first example doesn't really count because he was flagged offside and you can't really blame him for having a pop such is the position he is in but if he rolled it across the six-yard box, Scott Fraser could possibly tap in.
The moment in the 70th minute is his worst decision. He takes on the shot rather than moving the ball to Jorge Grant who is better placed to either shoot or pass onto Forrest.
Eight minutes later he is released by Shankland. This time he is correct to go alone but he perhaps should have taken another touch towards goal rather than shooting while off balance.
He wasn't the only guilty party. Shankland in the first half shot with his left foot despite having three Hibs players in front of him and Vargas better placed. It should be noted, it is Shankland. You can forgive him for doing what he wanted.
Finally, Forrest. The winger had a couple of decent efforts earlier in the half and he must have thought 'third time lucky'. But he should have passed to Nieuwenhof who is in a brilliant position.
Against Celtic, the team need to be clinical in front of goal but also aware of the best position to shoot.
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