PETER HARING says that far from Hearts fearing Celtic in the semi-final of the Betfred Cup, it is their opponents who should be scared of them.

The Tynecastle table-toppers carried on their remarkable start to the season by booking their place in the final four of the competition with a thrilling 4-2 win over Motherwell on Wednesday night.

The euphoria of the two last-gasp goals that sealed victory had barely subsided when the Hearts players watched the draw pairing them with the champions in the next round from the dressing room, and the prospect of taking on Celtic did little to dampen the mood.

When asked if other sides should now be fearing the league leaders rather than the other way around, Haring replied: “Yeah, we are doing well so far.

“We watched the draw in the dressing room, but we have already beaten them this season. Of course, if we play them in Glasgow, at Hampden, it will be different but to know that we have already beaten them, and we can beat them. That should make us feel comfortable and feel good about it.

“Now we are in the semi-final and of course we want to go to the final. I think it will be a very tough match, but we can beat them. We showed that already this season.

“We don’t get to decide who we play against and have to take it as it comes. There was a pretty good atmosphere in the dressing room when we saw that we will play against Celtic.”

Haring got his side’s second goal on the night against Motherwell, and he revealed that a little inside knowledge of teammate John Souttar’s ropey shooting technique was the key to being in the right place at the right time to slide the ball into the visitor’s unguarded net.

“I told Soapy that when I saw that he was going to hit the ball, I know that he never hits the target,” he said. “He always hits it left so I hoped that the ball would come there so it was a little bit of anticipation and knowledge of my team-mates!”

The enthralling victory over the Fir Park side has put the spring back in Hearts’ step after the deflation of the goalless draw with Livingston at the weekend. Although Haring believes that the reaction to that stalemate both inside and outside the Tynecastle camp shows how far they have come.

“I think especially in the first couple of minutes [against Motherwell] you could feel that there was still a lot of negative energy from the last game,” he said.

“There was a little bit of frustration after the last game because we knew that we had lost points because of us and not because of the opponents. We knew that we played badly and under-performed on Saturday but [on Wednesday], after the first 20 minutes and then especially after we scored, we played really, really well. and we scored four goals, from four different players and I think that means a lot. You can see that everybody in our team can score.

“After the first five games the expectations were a lot higher than before the season and I think much more was made of the result against Livingston. It was just a draw, and we still unbeaten in 12 games this year and that is incredible. It was a really bad performance from us and everyone knew that but we still got a point and we are top of the league, so it wasn’t all that bad.”

So far, then, so good for Haring and his Hearts teammates. The Austrian – who was brought to Hearts as a defender – has taken to Scottish football just as smoothly as he has taken to his new role as a midfield general, but he for one is not surprised by how well his team have performed to date this term.

“Everything has gone by really quickly,” he said. “If you would have told me that we would have 16 points after six games I think everyone would have signed up for that, and now we are in the semi-finals. “When I first came here and had talks with the gaffer and Austin (MacPhee), they told me that the standards at Hearts are high and that we want to win titles and I am happy that everything has gone so well, so far.”