Levein says injuries are unprecedented

Hearts manager Craig Levein faces a struggle to put out a team at Kilmarnock tomorrow after losing up to seven of his Edinburgh derby heroes.

Levein has only 12 fit and available outfield players for the final match of the Ladbrokes Premiership season after losing Danny Amankwaa, Demetri Mitchell and Joaquim Adao to injury following the 2-1 victory over Hibernian on Wednesday.

Kyle Lafferty is a doubt with a shoulder problem and Christophe Berra, Steven Naismith and Michael Smith are all suspended.

Hearts will seek permission from the Scottish Professional Football League to include four players who have just returned from loan spells, but are unlikely to succeed.

Levein was already missing a number of players including the concussed Connor Randall and John Souttar, who faces up to two months out with a hamstring problem, while Malaury Martin is away on paternity leave.

The Hearts boss said: “I don’t know if I’ve got a team to put on the field. It looks like we have 15 fit players and three of them are goalies. I’m just going to go through the names and see how they fall. I don’t know what to do. I just got hit by this this morning.

“It does look like I am going to be playing a number of really young players. . .Some of the young lads will certainly do a good job for us, but trying to get a core of players who understand the league and know the game and can help the young players, that’s where I am struggling.

“I’ve got Aaron Hughes, Don Cowie, Ross Callachan and Jon McLaughlin. Those are my fit and available senior players.

“This is unprecedented. I have had a situation before where we had a game called off through an illness that swept through the whole team, but I can’t remember a situation where there were so many injuries.”

Dario Zanatta, Alex Petkov, Daniel Baur and Aidan Keena have all spent the last few months on loan in the lower leagues and, while they were able to play for Hearts Under-20s, the rules do not permit them to play for the first team until the next transfer window opens.

Hearts accepted a two-match ban for on-loan Norwich player Naismith on Thursday following his challenge on Celtic skipper Scott Brown, and Levein admitted he might have thought differently had he known the extent of the injury situation.

“Possibly, but he misses Sunday’s match – and looking at it he would be as well missing Sunday’s match – and one of the Betfred Cup matches,” Levein said.