Robbie Neilson has challenged Hearts to continue proving they are the real deal away from home.
The Tynecastle club have struggled to pick up points on the road for several years and the current manager has made no secret of the fact he is determined to improve that situation.
Hearts have taken eight points from a possible 12 on their travels in the cinch Premiership this term and remain unbeaten.
However, Neilson is not getting carried away with their away form just yet as they prepare for testing trips to St Johnstone on Wednesday and then Aberdeen on Saturday.
He said: “It’s still early in the season. We spoke about trying to improve the away record prior to the season starting. We’ve done it so far but we’re only four away games in so we need to continue it.
“McDiarmid Park’s always a tough place to go. Most teams find it very difficult there. We have to make sure we’re ready.
“It’s been a while since Hearts won up there but there have been a few venues we’ve been to recently where we haven’t picked up points in the last few years and we’ve managed to do it in the past couple of months.
“We’ll have a huge travelling support again and the incentive for us is to make sure they go away happy and that we pick up three points.”
With two tough games in the space of four days, Neilson may freshen up his team in certain areas.
He said: “We’ll make one or two changes. I don’t want to make wholesale changes but we have a good squad here and I think it’s important that we utilise it as much as possible.
“It’s important to keep continuity but also have a bit of freshness coming in.”
One of those changes for the trip to Perth could be in the attacking area of the team where top scorer Liam Boyce is a doubt with a calf problem.
Neilson said: “Liam did a wee bit of training today (Tuesday) but we’ll assess him tomorrow (Wednesday). We don’t want to take any risks on him. He’s 50/50 at the moment.
“He’s important to the team but we’ve got a good squad here so if Liam doesn’t make it, somebody else will come in and I’m sure they’ll do a very good job.
“Armand Gnanduillet, Josh Ginnelly and Ben Woodburn can all play there so we’ve got a number of options.”
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