With Hearts awaiting Celtic on Sunday, manager Elena Sadiku is keenly aware of the importance of each game as the season enters the split.

Having started the season in four competitions, the side now find themselves with just one to contest, “a huge disappointment” according to Sadiku. Albeit it remains a crucial one as Celtic look to retain their league title.

Sadiku, is well aware of the quality her players will come up against in the coming weeks with the top four separated by just three points, Hearts having drawn with Rangers 2-2 in their last league tie.

“They had a great performance and a great result against Rangers. We know what side we’re up against,” said Sadiku.

Celtic suffered defeat in their previous outing, going down to surprise frontrunners Hibs 1-0, a result that left them three points adrift.

“We’ve said it to the girls, we’ve been in this situation before and obviously, when I came in last season, I think we were seven points behind and now we’re three points behind Glasgow City and Hibs.”

However the manager is confident that her players can repeat the feat thanks to their experience.

“We know that we can do it. We’ve done it before,” she said. “It’s just having that confidence and that braveness and not thinking about the pressure or just thinking about the task and what we need to do.”

Emboldened too by their 4-0 victory over Hearts the last time the sides met, Celtic’s stratagem flourishing with four different goal scorers contributing to the January win.

“I’ve said to the girls, for me, it’s important that they feel free and they feel creative and they feel brave.” said Sadiku.

“The energy within the team needs to be an energy that they want to make sure that they want to demand the ball, they want to be the difference.

“That has been a consistency. We can talk a lot about things, why it can look like that. It can be feeling the pressure or feeling different things that you can’t really control in terms of playing for Celtic and being the champions.