It was tempting to search for omens, positive or negative, when a deafening emergency siren at Tynecastle almost derailed Derek McInnes’ pre-match media conference on Friday morning.
Waiting reporters and camera crews were twice evacuated from the stadium, alongside club staff and children from the adjacent nursery school, before the fire service arrived and determined it was a false alarm.
McInnes was duly able to make his way into the media room at the appointed time and was coolness personified as he looked ahead to the most consequential 90 minutes of his career.
The Hearts manager and his players will require to be every bit as composed and focused amid the ear-splitting din at Celtic Park this afternoon as their remarkable Premiership title bid reaches its conclusion.
‘It will be bedlam’ observed McInnes, but with a look of relish and determination on his face and not even the slightest hint of apprehension.
He has complete faith in the ability of his players to take the final step demanded of them and secure at least the point they need to hold off Celtic’s post-split surge and make Hearts champions of Scotland for the first time since 1960.
Derek McInnes has urged his players to embrace the pressure at Celtic Park this afternoon
While there is no fear of the atmosphere which will be generated in the east end of Glasgow, McInnes is keenly aware that his final pre-match team talk will be more crucial than ever.
‘It will be difficult to get messages across to the players once the game has started because of the noise,’ he said.
‘Obviously, I say certain things to them during the week. There are some things I might want to hold back, sometimes certain things I think can have maximum effect, or a bigger effect, just prior to the game.
‘It’s just about when you make that point. Sometimes it can be quite scripted, sometimes it’s just a feeling or thought on the day.
‘But in terms of preparation, the performance is the biggest thing. It’s not about the 60,000 in the stadium. The players are looking for detail from me — what we’re doing when we have the ball and don’t have the ball, how to be ready to react to certain situations.
‘I’ve always leaned more on my senior players. I think it’s their job to help all my players once the game starts, but I think the senior players have always felt that they’re a bit more than just players for me.
‘I do think in a game like that they have to show certain traits, and they’ve done that all season. So I’m just asking them to be what they’ve been all season, to be honest.
‘It’s not really any different, but getting the message across sometimes — that’s why they need clarity. It needs to be really clear what we’re doing.’
McInnes will also take inspiration from Sir Alex Ferguson, the last manager to lead a non Old Firm club to the title when he won it for the final time with Aberdeen in 1985, who has been in regular contact with him this season.
‘I spoke to him early in the week, ahead of the Falkirk game,’ he revealed. ‘He then sent me a brilliant message on Thursday morning. I took a lot from that and I’ll no doubt speak to him before the game.’
The manager says he will lean on his experienced players like captain Lawrence Shankland
It’s a reminder that McInnes will be standing on the shoulders of giants if his players take possession of the Premiership trophy.
In a campaign which has come down to the final day, he won’t be surprised if their fate isn’t decided until the closing minutes.
‘Both teams have shown a capacity to win late,’ he said. ‘I think that demonstrates a lot and is quite significant for both teams, to be honest. It shows a lot of strong, firm traits.
‘Title-winning teams over the years have always had that, and I quite like that from early on this season we’ve had that.
‘I quite like that we’ve acted and behaved like that. We’ve never known when we’re beaten. We’ve never settled for a point, and we’ve always gone the full way.
‘It demonstrates a lot of things — winning mentality, the fitness of the players, squad readiness and squad depth.
‘There might be people out there that think everything is back on script — Celtic win a home game and win the league. But we have ripped up the script so often this season and I think we have one more in us.’
Hearts have an allocation of just 752 tickets for the match and McInnes is conscious of just how seismic a day it could be for those fans inside Celtic Park and the thousands more tuned in at home and pubs back in Edinburgh and beyond.
‘I don’t think anything I can say is going to make the fans feel any easier about things or less nervous,’ he added. ‘But you’d rather have this than a last-ditch fight to stay in the league and things like that.
‘The Hearts fans over the years have had a lot to contend with —from trying to save the club, to dealing with difficult owners, to relegations and real challenges.
McInnes hopes it will be a day to remember for long-suffering Hearts supporters
‘So as difficult as it is, let’s try and enjoy seeing Hearts being talked about positively and in such a good light. Hopefully it can be a brilliant day for the club tomorrow.’
Having said his piece on Celtic’s controversial late penalty award at Fir Park on Wednesday night, McInnes largely shut down any questions on refereeing and VAR decisions this time around.
‘It’s important to remember that when you look back at decisions, every team has been fortunate and every team has suffered through the campaign,’ he said.
‘My comment about it being “us against the world” was because it has felt that way over the last couple of games. But that’s not the important thing now.
‘The important thing is trying to take the opportunity that’s in front of us. We’ve deserved it, we haven’t fluked it.
‘The league deserves a lot of credit for the scheduling of this game. TV and sponsors get everything they want from a last day title decider.
‘We just need to get everything we want from it now and our performance will be the biggest driver in that.’
