Hearts manager Robbie Neilson has hailed Nigeria international Juwon Oshaniwa for his confidence on his team challenging for the title, but the boss would rather play down the team’s title challenge.
He revealed he has held temperance talks with his players in a bid to keep a lid on the bullish claims being made by some that they can land the Premiership title this season.
Defender Juwon Oshaniwa, an Africa Cup of Nations winner with Nigeria and a World Cup participant is of the opinion that his team can challenge for the title.
He said: “Juwon’s a confident boy and he’s won things before; he’s won the African Cup of Nations, which is a huge tournament and far better than the Scottish Premiership, that’s for sure.
“That’s the type of player he is. I’ve brought winners here and I want winners, I want guys that want to win things. But we still need to be realistic as to where we are.
“I’ve spoken to Juwon about it and the rest of the players about just keeping things under control. We need to be realistic about where we are. The media’s all jumping on the bandwagon after five games.
“But is anyone going up to Aberdeen telling them they’re going to win the league? They’re undefeated and have a game in hand, and can go ahead of us if they win their game 3-0.
“So, just because we got promoted last season doesn’t mean we’re automatically going to have a chance of the league, because we’re not.
He said it was difficult to keep a lid on things when people keep taking the team up five games into the season, and added: “From our perspective, we don’t talk about it in the dressing room – we don’t. We just talk about what we’re going to do on the Saturday or the next day or in the next game. That’s it.”
Neilson indicated earlier this summer that the cups would be more of a priority this season after last term extra attention was paid to the league and the successful bid to win promotion back to the top flight.
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