Hearts need redemption against Rangers and I will be praying title race goes to final day - Ryan Stevenson

May 18: the final day of the Premiership season. Every Hearts player should have that date circled on their calendar even if the visit of Rangers to Tynecastle will probably mean nothing in terms of my old team’s final league position.

Why? Because it means everything to dealing with what is becoming a serious problem. Five cracks at Rangers this season and five defeats is horrendous form by anyone’s standards - made all the more baffling by the fact Hearts have beaten every other top flight side including Celtic home and away.

Sunday’s spineless Scottish Cup semi final performance against Philippe Clement’s side was maybe the most frustrating of all. We’ll come to that in a minute. But if I was in that Hearts team then I’d be praying the title fight between Rangers and Celtic goes down to that final day on May 18.

I’d be hoping Rangers are still in with a chance of winning it in Gorgie so that I could go out and dump them in a game that really meant something. To be brutally honest, even that would be too little too late. But at least it would prove to everyone, not least the Hearts players themselves, that they can beat Rangers.

To have had five attempts and not even got a draw is woeful and I just can’t understand it because this is a good Hearts side. But they let themselves down in Sunday’s semi final. If they are man enough to take responsibility then they will admit that.

Every manager I played for said ‘go home and look yourself in the mirror’. If those Hearts players did that on Sunday they’d see a reflection of regret after a massive missed opportunity. They were like rabbits caught in headlights. It looked like the occasion got to them and with the experience in that team I can’t understand why.

The only