Robbie Neilson insists Hearts are ready for Europa League campaign

Robbie Neilson insists Hearts will be fully wound up for their European adventure as they return to pre-season training this week.

Europa League first round qualifying begins on June 30 and Hearts' players will gather at Riccarton on Wednesday June 15 after a four-week break.

This will be Hearts' first taste of European football since 2012 when they lost out to Liverpool 2-1 in a Europa League play-off. 

Neilson said he expects to further strengthen his squad before the qualifiers begin and is backing the fans to inspire the club to success on the continental stage.

He told the Evening News: "Fitness won't be a problem, it's just a case of getting back into it and finding our form again. We had a decent ending to the season in the last couple of games so we want to carry that through.

"We'll have the backing of the fans after selling more than 13,500 season tickets, which is fantastic for us. Hopefully we'll get a sell-out for the first European game and that would give us a great start.

"When you finish up at the end of a season, you have a couple of weeks off and then you're desperate to get back involved again, but I don't expect to have the full squad in.

"The deadline for registering players for the first European game is June 20 so we wouldn't expect to have the full squad in by then. I'll be hoping to get two, maybe three at the most and then wait from there to see what else happens."

Neilson has already brought former Kilmarnock and Dundee United striker Robbie Muirhead to Tynecastle and the signing of another Rugby Park old boy, Conor Sammon, could be confirmed later in the week while Belgian full-back Faycal Rherras is expected to complete his move to Gorgie in the next 48 hours.