Hearts are back in first-team action at the end of the month when Europa League qualification begins with Robbie Neilson welcoming the squad back to training tomorrow.
First round qualifying gets underway on 30th June with the return after just four-weeks away following last seasons third place finish in the Premiership, in the first season back in the topflight.
With season ticket sales going well Neilson’s confident enough the backing of the fans will see us through, which he hopes will see us sell out with him also not concerned about player fitness, telling the Evening News.
‘Fitness won’t be a problem, it’s just a case of getting back into it and finding our form again. We had a decent ending to the season in the last couple of games so we want to carry that through. We’ll have the backing of the fans after selling more than 13,500 season tickets, which is fantastic for us. Hopefully we’ll get a sell-out for the first European game and that would give us a great start.’
This European involvement will be our first since 2012 when Liverpool beat us two-one in a Europa League play-off.
With the deadline to register players for this European game being 20th June Neilson wouldn’t expect to have his squad in place fully by then, with three anticipated as arriving by then with Robbie Muirhead officially confirmed with and two set to be confirmed to in Conor Sammon and Faycal Rherras – as they since have.
He added.
‘When you finish up at the end of a season, you have a couple of weeks off and then you’re desperate to get back involved again, but I don’t expect to have the full squad in. The deadline for registering players for the first European game is June 20 so we wouldn’t expect to have the full squad in by then. I’ll be hoping to get two, maybe three at the most and then wait from there to see what else happens.’
