Derek McInnes clears the air over Kilmarnock star amid Hearts transfer pursuit + what he expects from Jambos

Derek McInnes has cleared the air over the future of a Kilmarnock player amid interest in his services from Hearts and others.

The Jambos have had a busy January transfer window to date. Sander Kartum is their fourth arrival of the window after Elton Kabangu, Jamie McCart and Michael Steinwender, with Liam Boyce and Kye Rowles also moving on over the course of the month.

Hearts officials have held signing talks with Kilmarnock winger Danny Armstrong, the Edinburgh Evening News reported earlier this month. The 27-year-old will become a free agent this summer and spoke to the Tynecastle club about a pre-contract agreement for next season. Hearts made their initial move but Armstrong has not yet decided on his future amid mounting.

McInnes has now faced the speculation and ahead of taking his Killie side to Tynecastle in the Premiership this weekend, he confirmed that no January move is expected. He said: "I love working with Danny and I have done since I've been here. I wanted that to continue.

"As far as I'm aware, he's not signed with anyone else. So while there's still a chance, we work towards that. I don't see anything happening in January. He's been a key player over the last couple of seasons and we hope he's a key player for us in the run-in this season.

"Managers need to accept that when players are out of contract and we've got a load of boys in that situation they've got advisors and have aspirations to maybe look at other things. I'm totally comfortable with that and we should all be. We've got so many players out of contract, but the focus always seems to be on Danny, which is totally unfair.

"When a team like Kilmarnock finishes fourth in the league, there's always reasons why that happened. Danny was a big part of that, so it's just par for the course."

On the game, with Kilmarnock suffering defeat just once in their last 11 trips to Gorgie, McInnes added: "It's funny how it's that way at so many grounds. Then there are others that are the total opposite.

"You hear it all the time, everyone says it's a good environment to play in. The players enjoy it. We go there knowing Hearts are a team that should be doing better than they are. They've found a bit of form recently and the manager has tried to implement what he wants from them. But nothing changes from our point of view. We go there with high motivation and expectations on ourselves to win the game."