Collins refusing to get swept up in derby fervour

The Lithuania striker struck both goals in Hearts’ remarkable comeback at Easter Road three weeks ago in an engrossing 2-2 draw in the Bank of Scotland Premierleague. That day, Hibernian were in the care of Mark Venus after Tony Mowbray’s move to West Bromwich Albion, but the CIS Insurance Cup rematch offers the chance for Collins to make a dramatic imprint on the Edinburgh derby in the way that Velicka did.

If Collins took his side a step closer to Hampden Park by winning the quarter-final against his biggest rivals after just eight days in the job, it could truly signal a new era. Mowbray admitted that his 28 months in charge of Hibernian were ruined by the fact that he never won any silverware. His successor is eager to change all that.

“We want to win the game first and foremost,” Collins said yesterday as he prepared for his second match in charge of Hibernian. “It’s the first cup of the season, the first chance to pick up some silverware. Obviously, as a manager that is one of your main aims. We would love to be in the semi-finals but we know that it will be a difficult game against Hearts. There will be a great atmosphere, there always is at these games, and we want to give the fans something to sing about.”

Hibernian fans were doing just that in the last derby, as their team raced into an early two-goal lead but Velicka’s double wiped out those hopes of victory. The fact that Velicka scored again at the weekend against Celtic will not have gone unnoticed at Easter Road.

The 27-year-old striker, who is on loan from FBK Kaunas, takes English lessons every day after training but that lack of awareness cocooned him from the recent troubles when Steven Pressley, Craig Gordon and Paul Hartley hijacked a press conference a fortnight ago to reveal the dressing-room unrest with the methods of Vladimir Romanov, the owner.

Velicka insisted yesterday that he was unaware of any concerns within the Tynecastle squad. Speaking through an interpreter he said: “As far as I’m aware there is no unrest. Everything is OK, everyone is training every day and concentrating on the next game. I don’t understand English so I didn’t quite understand what they were saying.

“I heard Steven Pressley on the radio but I could hardly understand anything he said. Maybe Steven didn’t ask me about it because I am a new player and I hadn’t been through all the events that he and all his other colleagues did. But my job is to play.”

Pressley will be back for Hearts after missing the defeat at Celtic last Saturday with flu, while Hibernian welcome back Chris Killen and Scott Brown after suspension kept them out of the 2-2 draw with Kilmarnock. However, the dugout is now the greatest area of change for derby observers.

It is not just Hibernian who have changed the man in charge since the last meeting. Valdas Ivanauskas, of course, is no longer there. The Hearts head coach — a veteran of three derbies — is still in a Lithuanian spa where he checked in to recover from stress and shows no sign of returning quickly. That means that Eduard Malofeev becomes the fourth man to take charge of Hearts in a derby in the last 16 months, after George Burley, Graham Rix and Ivanauskas.

Collins is eager to sample the occasion that he enjoyed as a Hibernian player, before heading off to Celtic, AS Monaco, Everton and Fulham. However, he insists that his players should ignore all the background noise and focus on finding the sort of perfection that the new manager wants in every game.

“I’ll be stressing to my players that they need to treat it like any other game,” Collins said. “If I can see a difference in their level of performance to what I see on a Saturday, then it will tell me they’re not doing what they should be doing in the other games.

“It’s very tough but it’s part of being a top player. Top players produce, no matter what game it is. They rise to every occasion, they play well against the small teams and in the big matches. I’ve asked my boys to show consistency and a standard in every game.”

The new manager insists his players cannot afford to get carried away with the occasion. “In all honesty, the build-up to derby matches is the same wherever you go,” he said. “There’s a lot of media attention and lots of fans who speak to you in the street. I was fortunate that I played in derbies in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and France.

“From a player’s point of view, you have got to try to stay calm and treat it like any other game. The preparation does not change, the training does not change and every game is the same. What you have to avoid is getting too caught up in what goes on round about it.

“There’s more tension before the game and in the build-up, more attention on you, but as a player or a manager you treat it exactly as you would any other game. If you are a big player then you want to play in the big games but you have to treat them all the same way.

“I will be judging the feeling and the atmosphere among the players to make sure that they are all focused on the game.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk