Craig Gordon has insisted that claims that he and his Heart of Midlothian team-mates have a mental block when facing Rangers are ‘a load of nonsense’.
Philippe Clement’s side travel to Tynecastle Park on Saturday afternoon to bring the curtain down on Hearts’ 2023/24 campaign. It will be the sixth meeting between the two clubs this season; Rangers have won the previous five.
Despite the team’s less-than-impressive record against the Ibrox outfit, Gordon is adamant that there is belief within the dressing room that Hearts can claim all three points tomorrow afternoon – and breach the 70-points barrier for only the second time in the Gorgie club’s history.
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“No, absolutely not,” Gordon said. “I've heard this so many times and it's a load of nonsense.
“We have come close. We were close at Ibrox [Hearts were leading until the 89th minute before losing 2-1 in October], we played well in the Scottish Cup semi-final [Hearts lost 2-0 last month] and if we managed to get a goal we could have gone on to win the game.
“I think it's a crazy thing that's come up over the last year or so. We'll be going out to beat them at Tynecastle. The players definitely don't like that getting bandied about so if there was to be any additional motivation, it's certainly that because we don't like it.
“We've had a good season and we want to finish on 70 points so it would be nice to get the win and maybe shut a few people up in the process. If we manage to beat Rangers then we'll have beaten everybody in this league at some point, which is not easy to do, so that's another thing for us to aim for.”
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