Stephen Kingsley has called on Hearts to keep going full throttle until the end of the season even though they already appear destined to finish third in the cinch Premiership.

The Jambos are currently 18 points adrift of second-placed Rangers and 12 points clear of Livingston, in fourth, after back-to-back wins over St Mirren and Aberdeen.

Kingsley insists they must not allow themselves to start feeling comfortable with nine games of the season still to play.

“There can’t be any complacency,” he said.

“It is essential that we don’t look too far ahead. We have just been through a dry spell so I don’t think the boys will look at this now and think ‘aye, we’ve done our jobs’.

“I don’t think we can. And, knowing the characters we have in that dressing room, I don’t think we will allow it to happen.

“We just need to keep kicking on and ticking off games as they come and try to finish with as many points as we can.”

Hearts were under fire from their supporters as recently as last week after a run of three consecutive defeats in the league.

Kingsley is optimistic that they have now emerged from that dip and can enjoy a strong finish to the campaign.

“During a season everyone knows that you are going to have these moments, these spells when it is not going so good,” he said.

“We knew that the results hadn’t been great before the St Mirren game and we needed to do something about it.

“It is normal to have these spells throughout the season but the most important thing is the reaction to it.

“You can’t let it dwell for the rest of the season or allow bad habits to come in.

“On Saturday, even though St Mirren went down to 10 men, I felt like the performance was good and the Aberdeen game was a really dominant performance against a good team.

“They are sitting quite low in the table but when you look at their players and the team that they are, that was a really good performance from us.”

Defender Kingsley scored his fifth goal of the season in Wednesday’s 2-0 win over Aberdeen with a bullet header.

“They go zonal marking so it is always good when you have a free run and are able to get above your man,” said Kingsley.

“The ball was perfect, to be fair. It was one of them, when you are trying to judge the flight of the ball, it can be difficult to get that leap but it was absolutely perfect.

“It came at the perfect time and I was able to get up early and it is hard for the defender to do anything from a standing jump.”