Hibs also got a win, away to St Johnstone, but have not beaten Hearts since late 2019.

"If you're going into a derby, you need to win it," said Neilson.

"That's it first and foremost. In a derby, you need to win every derby - whether it's the first derby, the last derby. It doesn't matter.

"We've been lucky enough to do that in the last couple of years. We need to continue to do that again. It's about us turning up on Saturday and making sure we get a win, we've got to do that.

"It's the fixture you look out for as soon as they come out. Thankfully, it's come early. We've managed to use it for the whole pre-season as a motivation to make sure the players are ready for the start of the season."

Hearts 'still assessing' trialist Davenport

Former Blackburn Rovers and Burton Albion midfielder Jacob Davenport, 23, has trained with Hearts this week and the club have also been linked with Suwon FC's South Korea forward Lee Seung-Woo.

"We brought him up and we're having a look at him, we'll still assessing him at the moment," explained Neilson. "We'll make a decision probably at the end of this week, probably over the weekend.

"I think we need a couple more, to be honest. Again, it's about getting the right player in. We've recruited well in the last 18 months to two years so the players that come in have to be at a level where they are taking us another wee step forward.

"At the moment, we've got a couple of targets we're interested in but we're just waiting for decisions on it."