Michael Stewart brands Hearts injury chaos 'farcical' but shows why Jambos not to blame for unprecedented woes
The former Hearts and Hibs midfielder has been weighing in on a tough Sunday for Hearts.
Michael Stewart insists Hearts aren’t to blame for their ‘farcical’ injury situation - as the freak nature of their blows can’t be accounted for.
Wouter Vrancken’s side lost the Edinburgh derby and Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup semi-final 2-1 against Hibs but its impacts could be long-reaching. Calvin Miller and Tomas Magnusson were added to the club’s already sizeable injury list ahead of matches versus Thun and Falkirk pre-international break.
Former Hearts and Hibs midfielder Michael Stewart was on duty for Premier Sports’ coverage of the derby. He acknowledges some will question why Hearts are picking up so many fitness problems but doesn’t feel it’s something that the club can’t prepare for in terms of in-game issues.
Michael Stewart on Hearts injury issues
Stewart said: “I think from a Hearts perspective, obviously, it's not just the here and the now. It's the looking further ahead with the fixture list, and a continuing growing injury list, that is bordering on farcical, to be honest. There's a lot of talk about do you need to look beyond just the fact there's an injury list, what's causing it.
“I don't think so because they're not injuries, and I said this in commentary, they're not muscle injuries. It's not like you can say, ‘oh you're overloading training’ and they're picking up these muscle injuries. They're freak incidents. It's freak incidents.
“Harry Milne's done his knee in Turkey during training. You could go through the list of others, you look at the back end of last season. I know it's last season but they had two players rupture their Achilles in the same game. I don't think you’ve ever seen that and obviously Craig Halkett still coming back from that.
“It's unprecedented and the squad is stretched. And to the point we were just talking before, I was surprised when Yan Dhanda came off, because I felt like they had a nice mix in there, but the boys were talking about, he's coming over and cramping up.”
On the semi-final, Stewart added: “It was a cracker of a game, it never let up, right from the first moments when Claudio Braga got Hearts in front. I thought it was just action-packed. You could go through the whole game with the moments that had everybody on the edge of their seat, but in the end I think you've got to say that Hibs deserved it.
“We spoke before the game about facing up to the fear of the fixture, the extra added incentive of being able to get through and get to a cup final. I think particularly in that first half, the second half is different, but you've got to give them a lot of credit for that as well. they were throwing bodies on the line, they were desperately trying to hold on to the lead that they had, but that first half for about 30-35 minutes, it was very good football.”