Hearts' January transfer plans as a speedy forward comes into contention

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Important window lies ahead at Tynecastle Park

A striker and a left-sided centre-back remain on Hearts’ wishlist for the forthcoming January transfer window. However, injury to Stephen Kingsley adds greater importance to the latter of the two, according to head coach Neil Critchley. Kingsley requires surgery on a hamstring tear and will be sidelined for several months.

Hearts want a forward with pace and mobility to add to their squad next month. They had also earmarked a left-footed central defender given clubs are showing interest in the Australian internationalist Kye Rowles. Losing Kingsley merely increases the need to strengthen in that department. “Potentially, yes,” explained Critchley. “It was still an area of the pitch that we were looking at anyway. With Stephen being out, that is something that we'll have to consider.”

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A striker has been a priority for some time, even before Critchley arrived in Gorgie in mid-October. “It goes without saying, you always want strikers to be able to score goals,” he said. “I also think they've got to complement the players that are already here.

“I sometimes feel slightly uncomfortable talking about January when we're at the start of December because lots can change, i.e. a Stephen Kingsley situation or injuries. It's hard for me to talk in great confidence in saying this and this because things can change. Is that an area of the pitch we'd like to strengthen? Yes, of course it is.”

Lawrence Shankland’s goal drought hasn’t helped as the club captain runs down his Hearts contract. That is not a major issue influencing the striker search, though. “No, I just think we need competition,” said Critchley. “If you ever bring in a player to the club, particularly on a permanent deal, then you've always got the short term but the long term - what it's going to look like in the future.

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“That then fits into your strategy of a football club and the identity you want your team to have in the future. Do those players fit your way of playing, how you want to play the game? Anyone we want to bring in has got to fit into what we're hoping is going to be the heart, weight, our identity for the long term.”

Hearts’ busy schedule this season places extra strain on players and leads to injuries, such as Kingsley’s. He was stretchered off against Aberdeen last weekend before fellow defender Frankie Kent was also substituted with a quad muscle injury. Beni Baningime did not train on Friday due to a knee issue and Critchley admitted the demands of domestic and European football combined have had an impact.

“Yes, it has. Touch wood. Until that [recent] period, we haven't had injuries in my time here at the club. I'd like to think that through my previous experiences and how to manage your week, how to manage your training load, you try to minimise them as much as you can. Sometimes, unfortunately, injuries are part and parcel of football.

“I'd like to think how we periodise our week and month, days off, recovery, training, appropriate training, how hard we train them, slight rotations of players and freshness, you try to minimise that as much as possible. Sometimes you're trying to avoid the muscle injuries as much as you can but it's been well-documented and well-publicised in the last 12 months about the amount of games and the amount of injuries. They're on the increase significantly. Games come non-stop - midweek, weekend.

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“I wouldn't say I've changed anything because to play the way we want to play, you have to train a certain way. It's just using your staff around you, good communication, preparing, talking about every player, putting a lot of time and effort into what's right for every single player, every game, every day. That's the conversations we have and you try to put all that information that we get, all the data, and put that all into helping you make the best informed decision on how to take the appropriate care for every single individual.”

Adding pace to Hearts’ forward line can be done before January with the return of Japanese winger Yutaro Oda. Critchley has liked what he has seen of Oda in training but injuries and illness have prevented him deploying the winger in matches to date. He is available to face Dundee on Saturday.

“Yutaro would have been involved last week. He was actually due to be on the bench against [Cercle] Brugge but he was sick prior to the game,” said the head coach. “He was actually there, he was on the teamsheet. We had to change the team sheet prior to the game.

“Yutaro is fit, he missed the Aberdeen game still through illness but he's trained this week. so he'll be in contention. Calem [Nieuwenhof] has been progressing, doing more training, more team training. He's been on a little bit of steady progression of non-contact, partial training and then he'll join in full team training. He's getting towards that point but then he'll probably still need a few weeks to be ready or to be considered for a matchday squad.

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“When Calem does return, then he's like every single other player: As soon as you cross the white line you're there to do your best and play to your ability. You get judged like everyone else. Internally that might be different, we can understand where he's at and what he needs and Calem will need a bit of time but I'm confident with the work that he's been doing and how he's been working. He's so conscientious about how he works that when he returns he'll be good to go.”

Hearts sit bottom of the Premiership and consequently need points against Dundee. They recorded five defeats and a draw in their last seven games in all competitions. Critchley is content with performance levels and insisted there is no issue with morale at Riccarton. He is convinced his team can move clear of the relegation zone over the coming weeks.

“Our form has been good, we've played well in the games,” he said. “We've actually drawn confidence and been buoyed by how we've played. We’ve just missed the last little bit, that is it. We should have beaten Aberdeen last weekend, we were the better team. We should have won the game. That's against a team who's flying high and won game after game in this league.

“If you look at our performances against Aberdeen, we've more than matched them home anyway. Celtic, Rangers, the European games - there's been no dip in morale at all. In fact, I think it's been the opposite. I think we've drawn confidence and belief in what we've been doing. What we've got to do now is turn that into results because that's the business, that's what we're in.

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“If you look at a lot of the games we've played recently, it's been isolated moments. It's not like we've been camped in our own half and there's been shot after shot, it's three or four goals and you're thinking: ‘We've got a real problem.’ We've got to make sure in those isolated moments where we're harder to score against, we're better concentrated, more competitive and we make slightly better decisions in our own penalty area.

“That prevents those moments from happening. That's the work that hopefully we can try to do as much as we can on the training pitch with the limited time that we get. It's quite a simple format and I keep coming back to it. We just need to do better at both ends of the pitch.”

Despite a potentially-pivotal UEFA Conference League tie away to FC Copenhagen lying just days away, Critchley wants Hearts simply to focus on Dundee. “Without a doubt. We prepare the same for every single game, regardless of who we're playing against: Celtic, Rangers, Dundee, Copenhagen next week, Cercle Brugge the other week - we prepare exactly the same way.

“We give full focus to the opposition and then we try and concentrate on how we're going to play in that game to give us the best chance of winning the game. So, all our conversation this week and all our focus is on Dundee, Tynecastle, Saturday, 3pm, and how do we win that game?”

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