Three points on Thursday night against Omonia Nicosia would see Heart of Midlothian put one foot into the knockout stage of the Conference League.

Such a prospect should have fans giddy at the thought, Hearts in European football after Chritmas. A two-legged tie.

Importantly, Neil Critchley is not one to get carried away at such a thought or prospect. His mantra, is the next game, one game at a time.

Plus, he believes Omonia are not to be taken lightly even with their poor run of form in the Cypriot league. The latest defeat saw manager Valdas Dambrauskas issue an apology to the fans

"Yeah, it's a real test," he said. "You watch the game that they played at the weekend and nine times out of ten they win that game. They were the dominant team. They should have won the game. We're not fooled by that defeat.

"We know the task we've got in front of us but we're off the back of a good win, plus a good win away in Europe as well. And we're at home so we have to use that to our advantage."

The challenge facing Hearts will be completely different to what the team faced in Critchley's first game against St Mirren.

The head coach provided an insight into what he expects his Hearts team to face, individually and collectively.

"They like to have the ball, they like to dominate the games with possession," he said. "They have different ways of building up and playing the game. They have some really exciting attacking players, wide players, No.9s and No.10s."

He added: "If they make substitutions they're very attack-minded. I know the right-back [Alpha Diounkou] from Manchester City when he was younger. The right-sided defender [Senou Coulibaly], very athletic.

"I wouldn't expect them to come here and park the bus and have everyone behind the ball. Their natural way is to have the ball. So we know we'll have to be good without the ball. But I want us to be a team that tries to dominate possession, no matter who we're playing against. I want us to try and make sure if we have the ball then maybe we can force them into doing things that they don't want to do.

"We're at the back of a 4-0 win and we're at home. We've won already in this competition, so let's go again."


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Critchely is keen to stress the importance he puts on "we". On what Hearts do. It's his message to fans when speaking to the media and his message to the players in training.

"We always concentrate on us, particularly me coming in at this moment in time," he said. "How do we improve? How do we get better? We will respect the opponent but come Thursday night it'll be down to work and it's about us, how we play.

"Our principles don't change but the team that we're going to face on Thursday is a very different team to St Mirren. Not good or bad, not right or wrong, just different. Everyone has a different system, different way of playing.

"Omonia is different so that means we have to adapt in our thinking of how we play the game in possession and how we're going to defend. That's what we spent our last two days doing. But again, I go back to our principles, which is we want to be a possession-based team and we want to be a team that, without the ball, is hard to play against, on the front foot and pressing teams."