Title winner Robbie Neilson will this week start laying the groundwork for a crack at the Premiership’s top six - as he aims to take advantage of Hearts’ two-month head-start over Hibs and Rangers. The Tynecastle boss will summon in agents to draw up new deals for his out-of-contract stars in the team who wrapped up the Championship title before Easter, before turning his attention to luring new players for an assault on the top flight. The 34-year-old believes that by clinching the title so early he has gained a huge advantage over rivals like Hibs and Rangers, who will not know until after the play-offs – which run from May 9 to June 2 – what division they will be playing in next season. Robbie Neilson believes winning the Scottish Championship title so early has given Hearts a big advantage . Delighted to avoid such a scenario, Neilson believes Alan Stubbs or Stuart McCall will risk miss out on landing the best players available. Neilson said: ‘If you go into the play-offs, you’re looking at June 2 before you know if you’re going to be in the Championship or the Premiership. That’s a lot of time to take off your planning for the following season. With any decent players out there, if you’re having to wait until June before you can offer them a contract, the good ones will be away. ‘So I do think that winning the title so early gives us an advantage. We know where we are going so it gives us the opportunity to get going and get in some recruits. Our pre-season is all planned now, too. Jubilant Hearts players throw Neilson in the air after they confirmed their status as champions . ‘We’re going to speak to the guys who are out of contract, get their agents in and see what we can do. There’s a few coming in this week and the week after that as well. It’s important to try and get them tied up because they have given us so much this season. We want to push to get into the top six so if that means altering the squad a little, so be it. But everything falls into a budget.’ Hearts strolled to the Championship title, losing just once this season, at home to Falkirk in January. Yet while Neilson will keep faith with the core of the team who secured him his first trophy as a manager, he warned them they will need to up their game in the top flight. ‘We’re not getting carried away,’ he said. We’ve just won the Championship, but we’re stepping up to a higher league. We definitely need to recruit but the nucleus of the team will stay the same. There are great players here, players with great potential, young guys that are doing great and some older players who have been fantastic. The Hearts manager celebrates his side's league title with club owner Ann Budge, who got a standing ovation . ‘We’ve got guys now who have won a league and that experience will set them up well for the rest of their careers. But when you move up a level, you have to up your game a bit as well. A lot of preparation will need to be done. There are things we got away with this season that we won’t get away with next season. ‘It will be a different season next year. I don’t expect the kind of season we had this year. I wasn’t expecting to go so many games undefeated, to have so many wins in a row. It will be difficult next season but it’s my job to make sure we are ready.’ Neilson also praised the structure at Hearts in which he works as head coach under director of football Craig Levein, with chairwoman and owner Ann Budge making all the major non-football decisions. ‘To be in this structure is great,’ he said. ‘A lot of clubs are doing it down in England now. The majority of foreign clubs have been doing it for the last 10 years. So it’s probably the way football is going nowadays. Neilson believes that Rangers and Hibs are at a disadvantage when it comes to preparing for next season . ‘Long gone are the days when a manager makes financial decisions about what direction the club’s going to go in. There’s such a big infrastructure that a coach needs to focus on the football and not deal with the other stuff like board meetings. It gives me the opportunity to focus on the things that matter to the players and on their performance on a Saturday. ‘It was great to see Craig and Ann get an ovation from the fans at the end today. They’ve been fantastic. Ann’s come in and given the club a real direction, a togetherness. ‘The way she has handled everything, be it the media or the fans, even the football side of it, has been second to none. ‘She has put her trust in Craig to get the football department together. He has then put his trust in me to look after the first team. Everything has worked out well. We just need to use this as a springboard to go and push on. I want this to be the beginning of something really good.’ Alan Stubbs (pictured) and Stuart McCall have to wait until June to find out which division they will be in .
Hearts have already secured promotion from the Scottish Championship . Boss Robbie Neilson will start laying the groundwork for next season . He believes a two-month head start can give them a crack at the top six . Neilson thinks Hibs boss Alan Stubbs and Rangers manager Stuart McCall risk missing out on the best players available .