Hearts defender John Souttar to play against Rangers? Robbie Neilson has his say

Hearts are poised for an influx of players returning from injury ahead of next weekend’s Scottish Cup final.

Midfielders Andy Halliday, Cammy Devlin and Aaron McEneff, plus defenders John Souttar and Michael Smith are all included in the squad for tonight’s Premiership visit to Motherwell.

Craig Halkett is scheduled to feature in the final league game of the campaign against Rangers at Tynecastle Park on Saturday. Provided no-one suffers any adverse reaction, they should all be available to play Rangers again at Hampden Park seven days later.

“Tomorrow we’ll have McEneff, Smith, Devlin and Halliday, plus Souttar will be on the bench. He won’t play but he’ll be available for Saturday,” explained the Hearts manager Robbie Neilson. “The hope for Halkett is Saturday, too. Apart from Beni Baningime, they will all be available for some sort of a game on Saturday.”

Neilson added that he would have no qualms fielding Souttar in any of the Rangers fixtures despite the Scotland centre-back having signed a pre-contract agreement to move to Ibrox this summer.

“No. John is a Hearts player and he wants to do well for Hearts. Whenever John plays he’ll give 100 per cent. The carrot for him is the cup final and Scotland in the summer, so he wants to play well and do that.”

Hearts will hope to give all of the above as many minutes on the pitch as possible, with Neilson underlining the fact that game time breeds confidence for any player following injury.

“They don’t need to prove themselves because they’ve been working hard. It’s more mentally for them to be able to say, ‘I’m ready’,” he explained. “They’ve played some minutes against Motherwell or against Rangers, so they can say ‘I’m ready to go’, as opposed to just rocking up at