{"id":362044,"date":"2025-12-21T15:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362044\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T15:38:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:38:04","slug":"hearts-ready-to-handle-pressure-says-lawrence-shankland-scottish-gossip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362044\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearts ready to handle pressure, says Lawrence Shankland &#8211; Scottish gossip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hearts are ready to handle the pressure of being top of the Scottish Premiership, says captain Lawrence Shankland. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thescottishsun.co.uk\/sport\/15713620\/lawrence-shankland-hearts-title-rangers-celtic\/\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(Sun), external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Shankland is comfortable with Hearts being regarded as favourites against Rangers on Sunday. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotsman.com\/sport\/football\/hearts\/latest-hearts-news\/we-see-it-differently-lawrence-shankland-embraces-hearts-label-but-rejects-celtic-and-rangers-narrative-5450984\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(Scotsman &#8211; subscription required), external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And Shankland, 30, recalls being told by his current Hearts boss Derek McInnes he was surplus to requirements at Aberdeen and says &#8220;I don&#8217;t hold grudges&#8221; and insists he &#8220;never blamed&#8221; McInnes for his Pittodrie exit. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyrecord.co.uk\/sport\/football\/football-news\/lawrence-shankland-relives-painful-moment-36434941\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(Record), external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">McInnes hopes the Hearts crowd will be extra vocal against Rangers at Tynecastle. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com\/sport\/football\/hearts\/hearts-rangers-derek-mcinnes-tynecastle-fans-january-transfer-window-scottish-premiership-5449727\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(Edinburgh Evening News &#8211; subscription required), external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Aberdeen will &#8220;prepare as if the best Celtic are going to turn up&#8221; when the sides meet in Glasgow on Sunday, says Nicky Devlin. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyrecord.co.uk\/sport\/football\/football-news\/nicky-devlin-insists-aberdeen-prepare-36434227\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(Record), external<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Former Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou and ex-Rangers player Kevin Muscat were reunited at Melbourne Victory&#8217;s Saturday derby win over Melbourne City. Muscat was Postecoglou&#8217;s assistant at Victory and succeeded him as manager.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thescottishsun.co.uk\/sport\/15713834\/celtic-fans-ange-postecoglou-rangers-hero-react-job\/\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(Sun), external<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hearts are ready to handle the pressure of being top of the Scottish Premiership, says captain Lawrence Shankland.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-362044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}