Lawrence Shankland won't want to hear this but here's what Hearts must do for his own good

Neil Critchley has been urged to take goal-shy striker Lawrence Shankland out of the firing line on Thursday night.

Hearts hero Shankland is enduring the toughest goal drought of his career having found the net just once in 19 appearances this season. It's a far cry from last term when the frontman hoovered up every Player of the Year gong having notched an incredible 33 goals for club and country.

As he enters the final six months of his contract, Shankland confessed at the weekend that he expects to leave Tynecastle, with contract talks currently off the table. The uncertainty surrounding his future could perhaps be a factor behind his profligacy in front of goal and after spurning a host of chances in the weekend's defeat against Celtic, former Jambos star Ryan Stevenson reckons Shankland should be dropped for the Europa League clash against Cercle Brugge.

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He told the Daily Record: "It's Cercle Brugge on Thursday and it's worth dropping Lawrence Shankland for that one. He wouldn't want to hear it but I would. No one can sing Lawrence's praises higher than I have over the last 18 months or so. But right now, I wouldn't play him for his own benefit as much as anything.

"I've been there where managers have dropped me and told me, 'it will give you a bit of freshness, it might help you'. As a player, I 'd have told the manager to (expletive) off. You want to play every single game. Lawrence will be the same. But detaching myself from that, I think it would be the best thing.

"As far as Kenny Vargas goes, I've been there myself where I've said something that's backfired. I agree with what Cammy Devlin said about him, 'Do your talking on the pitch'. And that ultimately comes down to working hard for the jersey first.

"Then once you do that, get an assist or score goals - which ultimately leads to the team winning games. Then everything gets forgotten about. In the times we're in, football can be made complicated by idiots. When it comes down to it, it's extremely simple. If you're a defender, you work hard, you stop goals. If you're an attacking player, you work hard and you score goals.

"Kenny just needs to get his head down and score goals. Hearts fans are amazing in that they don't really ask for a lot. And they'll give you so much back. If he just works hard, the Hearts fans will give him leeway. If he does that, then at some stage, he will start scoring goals."