Saturday brings a welcome distraction from the league for Falkirk as they face Hearts in the fifth round of the Scottish Cup at the Falkirk stadium. Both teams are having completely different seasons. Falkirk currently sit second in League 1, three points from Raith Rovers who currently occupy the top spot in the league. Assuming Raith win tomorrow, the gap will go to six points although Falkirk will have a tough game in hand against East Fife and still have to play Raith twice. Hearts are having a really poor season although they are currently looking to turn things around. They are one point adrift at the bottom of the Premiership following a 3-2 defeat to Kilmarnock on Wednesday night when they went 3-0 down in the first half. Following the departure of Craig Levein, Daniel Stendel has arrived in the capital and got the side playing a bit better with several good new signings. The standout one being Liam Boyce from Burton who has only failed to score once since arriving in Scotland again following a successful spell with Ross County. Hearts have also brought in players such as Marcel Langer and Toby Sibbick. They have also got many key players back from injury like Scotland international players, John Souttar and Steven Naismith as well as the likes of Jamie Walker and Connor Washington. There are two familiar faces to Bairns fans in the Hearts team that are likely to start tomorrow. Andy Irving was on loan at Falkirk for the first half of the 2018/19 season and played almost every game under Ray McKinnon in that time. Lewis Moore was also signed under McKinnon this January and only played twenty league minutes this season for us. He has started almost every game since returning to Hearts. As far as I am aware, Falkirk don’t have any fresh injuries. Louis Longridge can play after being ineligible against Arbroath and Ben Hall is cup tied having played with Partick Thistle in the cup earlier this season. The game will be broadcasted on BBC Scotland (Sky channel 115) and kick off will be delayed by one minute to raise awareness of mental health. It will kick off at 19:21. There will be updates on all of our social media platforms from 18:30 onwards with the match report likely to be posted on Sunday.

Predicted Falkirk Side

Falkirk are likely to keep a similar team to previous weeks. Robbie Mutch will start in goals. It will be the same back four that has played the majority of the games this season. As Ben Hall is cup-tied, Buchanan and Durnan will start in central defence. Morgaro Gomis is likely to start with Gary Miller in the middle of the park. The in-form Aidan Connolly will likely continue although, Louis Longridge may play on the right. Declan McManus will probabl/y play up front with Connor Sammon as the Irishman looks to score against his former team.

What are the managers saying?

“Wednesday was a big disappointment. We want to play so much better than we played and, especially, we want to win. But this is the situation, it’s passed, and the future is Falkirk tomorrow. We keep our confidence and we try to change it. It’s a good chance to show our ambitions. We want to use it and it’s clear that we want to win this game and get into the next round”

– Daniel Stendel speaking to http://www.heartsfc.co.uk

“We can test ourselves against a team at a higher level than us and its going to be a great game. It’s going to be a tough game we need to set up properly and do our jobs properly in certain areas but we know its a home game and we will be looking to implement the things we normally do”

– David McCracken speaking to Falkirk TV