Gary Mackay: Do Hearts need a new striker?

Liam Boyce is Hearts' main striker for this season.

Hearts appear to be looking and Liam Boyce and Craig Wighton as our two orthodox strikers at the moment.

One is a proven international forward with years of experience who should be more than capable of taking the Scottish Championship by storm.

The other is under a wee bit of pressure because he hasn’t proved himself yet or played on a regular basis at Hearts.

That is the challenge for Wighton. He has had some injuries which are not his fault and maybe he wasn’t given confidence by the previous coaching staff.

It’s maybe going to take a change of management team to give him the opportunity to prove that he is capable of playing as a striker for Hearts.

If they are looking at Boyce and Wighton as the two centre-forwards, I still think it would be great to get another one in.

Because of where we are after relegation to the Championship, I’m sure Robbie’s hands will be tied to an extent. The financial situation the club finds themselves in will dictate what kind of budget is available.

That isn’t Robbie’s fault so he has to make the best of what he’s got in the squad. There might be a little bit of mixing and matching, perhaps some juggling to get a strikeforce which is potent enough, but that’s for him to decide.

What will help both Wighton and Boyce is that fact Hearts have prioritised pace and width during the summer recruitment. That should allow us to create opportunities which we didn’t do enough of last year.

The fans will be excited by the pace of Jordan Roberts, Elliott Frear and Josh Ginnelly. We were inept in the wide areas last season. It was full-backs who were getting forward and trying to deliver crosses, which just doesn’t work well enough.

You need to have wide men able to get supporters off their seats – if any of them are allowed back into Tynecastle – and create chances. You can’t leave strikers to to it by themselves.

If you have that pace, you can stretch teams and I think we will see that from Hearts in the Championship this season. Robbie has identified that area as needing improved and hopefully the strikers will benefit.

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