Frankie McAvoy gives Hearts transfer update after signing of Frankie Kent this week

Frankie McAvoy hopes Hearts will be announcing further signings in the near future after the club bagged their third new addition of the summer transfer window earlier this week.

English centre-back Frankie Kent signed from Peterborough United on Monday, following on from the acquisitions of veteran goalkeeper Michael McGovern and Australian midfielder Calem Nieuwenhof.

Hearts were slow in getting deals over the line, officially becoming the last team in the SPFL to sign anyone this pre-season prior to the deal for McGovern. However, McAvoy insists there’s a lot of hard work being done behind the scenes as the management team and sporting director Joe Savage continue to try to bring in other new faces to round out the squad before the opening game against St Johnstone next weekend.

"Like everyone else, we’d like to have more strength in depth in the squad,” he told Sky Sports News.

Hearts head coach Frankie McAvoy in discussion with Cammy Devlin during training. Picture: SNS

"It’s not quite as easy as just saying ‘go get them in’ then you’re able to go out and just get the targets you want. You have to go through the process and sometimes it needs to be right for the club and the player as well.

"We’ve worked really hard behind the scenes. Joe and his recruitment team have worked hard, as has Steven and the rest of the coaching staff in terms of identifying targets. The difficult part is then down to Joe in terms of getting them over the line.

"We’ve got three in so far. We’re looking to add more and hopefully it won’t be too long before we announce some new signings.”

The lack of new experience pros coming in thus far has offered chances to many of Hearts’ young players this pre-season as the club seek to build a better pathway for more of their promising talents to reach the first team.

"We’ve integrated some of the younger players into training and into the games as well. That’s about showing them both what we expect of them and how we expect them to play. And on the whole it has went well,” said McAvoy.

"We’re gearing up for a big game on Sunday against Leeds and hopefully getting ourselves prepared for when the real stuff starts a week on Saturday.”