Steven Naismith rejects Aberdeen argument that 'discredits' Hearts third place achievements

Steven Naismith is not buying the argument that Hearts only romped third place because Aberdeen have dropped off this season.

The Jambos wrapped up the 'best of the rest' tag at the weekend despite losing to Celtic, with Kilmarnock's defeat to Rangers a day later making the gap insurmountable. It means the Tynecastle club have completed three successive top four finishes for the first time since the 1990s.

Doing so with three games to spare has been a result of their consistency and in particular a superb run in the middle of the season which was almost on a par with Celtic and Rangers had elevated them away from the rest of the teams. The two expected rivals for third, Aberdeen and Hibs, have been poor and are in the bottom six.

The Dons were the third best team last season after pipping Hearts who had a significant lead at one stage but the Pittodrie side struggled for consistency during their Europa Conference League run and have never recovered.

But Naismith doesn't believe that's the reason for his own team's success and agrees with the suggestion that would discredit their achievements.

“I think it does,” he told the Edinburgh News. “The way we have performed against the teams round about us, we have performed consistently and got results. On the flip of that, you say Kilmarnock, St Mirren and Dundee have performed much better and probably been much tougher opponents than many people would expect as well.

“Kilmarnock's record this season has been fantastic. They have had five attempts at beating us and they haven't beaten us so we are obviously doing something right in those games as well.

"Overall, I'm delighted because of the hard work and the buy-in we've had from the players. They take a lot of the credit because they are the ones who have to make the decisions on the pitch. They have got a lot more right than wrong this season.”

Naismith insists he was always confident of meeting the aim of finishing third but admits he didn't quite expect to do it in such style.

He added: "It was my expectation at the start of the season that we would finish third. I firmly believed that. Any time I spoke to the club last summer or at the start of the season, I had real belief that we would do it. The manner in which we've done it is the bit where I think we have done better than expected.

“Maybe some teams haven't performed to the level they wanted but we have come through a lot. We have come through a stormy start but I expected that to happen to a point. Everything was new, we were asking the players to put themselves in vulnerable positions and we got punished for it early on.

“We had a real belief and that's the positive. Very rarely do you have a month or three weeks of a season to go and you can be relaxed. That doesn't mean putting the tools away and just be buzzing that you've managed to achieve it, it's relax in terms of your performance. That comes from the hard work put in over the last six, seven, eight months.”