Euan Henderson to sign new Hearts deal as club reveal first-team plan for forward

Euan Henderson will sign an extended Hearts contract before a decision is made on whether to loan him out for the second half of the campaign.

After 11 goals in 17 games on loan at Alloa, the 21-year-old forward has returned to Riccarton and could get an opportunity over the coming weeks. Should Hearts succeed in their attempts to sign a new attacker, Henderson is then likely to be loaned out again in February.

He has already agreed terms with his parent club to extend his deal beyond the end of this campaign. “Euan will stay with us probably until the end of the window,” explained the Hearts manager, Robbie Neilson.

“The loan window stays open a bit longer. We'll make a decision depending on who comes in recruitment wise, whether we keep Euan with us or put him out on loan.

Euan Henderson is back at Hearts for now.

“He's had a brilliant loan at Alloa, scored a lot of goals. It's the balance between bringing him in and utilising him a little bit with us or putting him back out and letting him play another 15 to 20 games. The plan is to keep him for another couple of weeks, hopefully by then we will have recruited and then Euan will go back out.

“He's signing a contract extension and he will come back in the summer and give himself a shot to get in the first team. We're in the process of renewing his contract. I don't think we are very far away. I expect that to be in the next week or two. He's done very, very well at Alloa.

“I still think there is development there but I can see the progression just by getting first-team football will be great for him. We've gone up to nine on the bench, five subs can come on now [after SPFL altered their rules], so we need to utilise the full squad.”

Hearts have signed Craig Gordon, Stephen Kingsley, Craig Halkett and Michael Smith on extended deals and Neilson said more could follow.

“Potentially. There are one or two players we are thinking about. We wanted to get those four sorted first and then we can progress from there. The focus now is on recruitment until the end of the window. Once we do that we'll decide where we are.”

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