Why Steven Naismith wants Hearts to continue enjoying themselves in last two matches

The Jambos sealed third place and guaranteed European football earlier this month, and in their first match after that was confirmed, they romped to a 3-0 win over Dundee – their biggest home league victory of the season. Naismith hopes his team continue to flourish when they visit St Mirren on Wednesday in a match that has little riding on it from the visitors’ perspective other than offering them the chance to stay on course to hit the 70-point mark.

“We’re looking forward to it because of the result and the performance at the weekend,” said Naismith on Tuesday. “It was really enjoyable. It’s not very often you get three weeks of the season to go, where you’ve hit your targets already. The next part was to find the enjoyment and I think we did that at the weekend, and we’ve got another opportunity to do that again tomorrow night.”

Hearts won 2-1 on their last visit to St Mirren just over a month ago, but Naismith expects a tough test against a fifth-placed, Europe-bound Buddies side bidding to see out their own impressive season on a high note. “The last game (in Paisley) was spoiled a bit by the wind, but we managed to grind it out and do what it takes to get the win,” said Naismith. “I think this time there will be a bit more football played, but in terms of the team that we’re coming up against, they’re well-drilled and well-organised.

“They’ve got a good system that they play, and I think you can see that they’ve been together for some time as a squad. I’d expect them to be similar, the personnel might change due to where we’re at in the season, but we need to go and understand that it will be a tough game but know that we will cause them problems.

“They’re a good footballing team, which I think goes unnoticed a bit. They’ve always got players on the attack, happy to commit bodies forward. Stephen (Robinson) has done a brilliant job over the years to steadily build, get them into the top six and potentially Europe, which would be a massive achievement. We know it’s not going to be easy, but we think we can cause them problems.”