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Hearts to target attacking reinforcements in January as Tynecastle club brace for departure of key players
Head coach Neil Critchley is looking to add attacking reinforcements to Hearts in the upcoming January transfer window.
The Tynecastle side currently sit second bottom of the Scottish Premiership, just a point above city rivals Hibernian, and have the third-lowest total for goals scored in the top-flight with 14. Last season they were fired to third thanks to Lawrence Shankland contributing 31 goals in 47 club appearances across the campaign but the 29-year-old has just one goal to his name so far in the 2024/25 season.
He’s not the only striker Hearts have tried out this season either, with Kenneth Vargas, Liam Boyce, Musa Drammeh, and youngster James Wilson all playing in the role at some point already but none of them have shown any signs of consistent goalscoring form. With Shankland, Wilson, and Boyce all in the final year of their contract, the Edinburgh Evening News now reports Critchley is eyeing a new attacker in January.
They do add however that the club are likely to “invoke their option to extend Wilson's deal for at least another 12 months.” Shankland, who was heavily linked with a move to Rangers over the last 12 months, is likely to leave next summer when his contract expires.
The head coach, who replaced Steven Naismith in October, has previously sung the praises of the youth set-up, another possible avenue for Hearts to find an emerging talent. He said, “We’ve got an exciting crop of youth who show all the qualities required to make it into the first-team environment.”
The club’s CEO, Andrew McKinlay, previously signalled that the club’s deal with Tony Bloom’s analytics firm would be beneficial to the club already in the upcoming window.
Asked what he can say about the analytics, McKinlay told Hearts TV: “And we’ll also be using it, and already are, for player identification both in January but probably more fundamentally come the summer.
“Everyone can see who is out of contract so there might a fairly big overhaul come the summer. We’re already using it, we’re enjoying using it and I think it’s going to be a great success.”
