Ross County manager Jim McIntyre does not expect Hearts’ momentum to be affected by the departure of head coach Robbie Neilson in today’s encounter at Victoria Park.
Caretakers Jon Daly and Andy Kirk will take charge of the Jambos for the trip to Dingwall after Neilson’s departure to English League One side MK Dons.
Hearts come into the game on the back of successive victories against Motherwell and Rangers which have propelled the Edinburgh outfit into second place in the Premiership and McIntyre expects their players to be full of confidence despite the uncertainty over the managerial position.
He said: “The one thing the game against Rangers on Wednesday proved was that players focus on the game ahead. Whether Robbie was staying or going the players showed that their sole focus was on that game.
“They put in a fabulous performance. I thought they were excellent from start to finish and thoroughly deserved to win.
“When you get back-to-back results you get confidence. We have seen that with ourselves lately. We got our win at St Johnstone then had a really positive performance against Hamilton and created lots of chances.
“That confidence is there and Hearts also showed that on Wednesday. They have got a good mixture of physicality and flair in their team. The balance of their team was very good against Rangers.
“We need to bring the same level of performance that we had against Hamilton, with energy and winning our battles. That gives you the platform to go on and play and try and win the game.”
McIntyre faces an attacking dilemma having been impressed with the contribution of Dutch forward Alex Schalk from the bench in last week’s 1-1 draw against Hamilton Accies, despite him missing several chances to kill off the game.
Schalk replaced Craig Curran at half-time and McIntyre added: “Craig just felt a little nip in his hamstring, so we didn’t want to take any chances there, especially when we have Alex and Greg Morrison there on the bench able to come on and do what they can do.
“Alex deserves a lot of credit for the runs he was making because I don’t know if there’s another player in our team who would have got on the end of some of the chances.”
