Hearts aiming to add Goncalves and Tsiolis as Cathro made to sweat

IAN CATHRO, the Hearts manager, last night admitted he was hopeful of adding Esmael Goncalves and Alexandros Tsiolis to his squad before the January transfer window closes tomorrow night.

However, Cathro confessed the condition of John Souttar, the Scotland Under-21 centre-half who was stretchered off in the second half of the 4-0 defeat to Celtic yesterday, was a worry.

“It’s an Achilles issue but we don’t know the extent of it just now,” he said. “As you saw, it didn’t look nice so we are concerned about that.

“It will be in the next few hours and tomorrow morning before we know exactly what that is. We need to get to exactly what it is.”

Cathro completed his sixth signing of the window on Friday when he signed Moha El Ouriachi Choulay, who came on as a substitute at Parkhead, on loan from Stoke City.

He is hoping to add midfielder Tsiolis, a 31-year-old Greek internationalist who has agreed t o terminate his contract at PAOK Salonika, this week.

Elsewhere, Esmael Goncalves, the one-time St Mirren striker who i s currently playing for Anorthosis Famagusta in Cyprus, could also be arriving.

“It’s an area of the park where we need to add players anyway,” he said. “We need to add players all across the pitch, including the bench.

“We are a little bit light, we know we have a lot of work to do, and we are doing it. We expect to bring in players over the next few days. I think we’re probably already quite far down the line with a couple of options.”

Asked about Tsiolis and Goncalves, he said: “These are things that have already been spoken about publicly from the other end, in the case of Goncalves.

“I think the president of the Cypriot club has already made comments so I am sure he doesn’t mind me also commenting.

“Tsiolis is now a free agent, we are working on both of those things. It’s possible, but there is still a bit of work to be done.”

Hearts pushed hard for an equaliser after falling behind to a Callum McGregor goal after half an hour and Cathro felt it could have been a different game if Malaury Martin had converted a chance in the second half.

“We wanted to come here and compete against them and we believed that we could and we gave enough evidence that that was possible throughout,” he said.

“We managed to stop their build-up sometimes but, of course, when you play against good players you’re going to spend some time defending low.