Hearts to offer duo adaptation time after transfer arrivals as 'direct' impact hinges on key factors
Hearts signed two promising talents in the final week of the transfer window.
Wouter Vrancken says teenage duo Aron Benjaminsen and Leart Kabashi will be given time to adapt at Hearts after their arrivals in the final week of the summer transfer window.
Benjaminsen is an 18-year-old Faroese winger signed from Vikingur while Kabashi is a midfielder of the same age. He has signed from Grasshopper Zurich and his arrival comes amid middle of the park issues for head coach Vrancken, who has Tom Renaud and Blair Spittal out injured for the foreseeable, while a possible engine room option in Oisin McEntee was taken off at half-time in Sunday’s 2-1 Premiership win over Dundee amid a fitness concern. Ageu has missed all of this term so far with injury.
Benjaminsen and Kabashi have signed lengthy contracts until 2030 at Tynecastle but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t make an impact in the here and now. Vrancken is aware both will be juggling a rise in demand from where they have been previously, the Faroese top flight and Swiss youth football predominantly, with adaptation to be provided in search of long-term success.
How will Hearts new signings perform at Tynecastle?
The Hearts boss responded when asked by the Evening News if Benjaminsen and Kabashi are players for now or the future: “Both, I would say. I think for the future for sure because they're really young. For having a direct impact it will depend on themselves, and how they can adapt, how they can fit themselves into the club.
“It depends on them at this moment but on the other hand we have to give those guys also the time. With their age and the moments that they got in their other teams, not playing on the same level, you don't have to overload them with the pressure there and just give them the time to adapt and to show themselves.”
A busy summer transfer window ended with Hearts signing 14 new players alongside a host of high-profile exits like Vrancken’s predecessor Derek McInnes, captain Lawrence Shankland, midfielder Cammy Devlin, and several others.
Talisman Claudio Braga remains a Hearts player for the first part of the season at least, and with Vrancken focused solely on the players he has at his disposal, a period of calm is something he feels will benefit his group. After getting the better of Dundee on league business, the Jambo take on Championship leaders Stenhousemuir at Ochilview, in a Premier Sports Cup quarter-final tie this Friday night.
Hearts transfer window assessed
On the transfer window at Hearts, Vrancken added: “We are always focused on the guys who are there because in a window like this it's always a little bit crazy at the end. You have to adapt as a head coach. I was happy to see that the players stayed focused and just focused on the games. You see it on the pitch then that it brings something and that you can make a good result.
“I think settling in at this moment for players is also a good thing that there's nothing happening anymore and you can just focus on being here. Focusing on what you have to do. I have to say, I didn't have the complaints before, so even in the last moments I think the focus was always there. I'm also realistic that everything can happen in the last moments of such a window but the focus was not gone. The focus stayed in the sessions, the focus stayed in the meetings, and also like you saw in the game.”