Damour will seek talks over his future if Hearts go down

Loic Damour intends to hold talks with Hearts about his future if the club are relegated from the Scottish Premiership.

The French midfielder has three years remaining on his contract and stressed he will not make any rash decision if his employers go down.

Officials at Tynecastle Park are awaiting a decision by the Scottish Professional Football League on whether their remaining eight games of season 2019-20 can be played.

The league hold the authority to end the season prematurely and consign bottom-ofthe-table Hearts to a drop into the Championship.

Damour plans to wait for the outcome and then speak to the club over the summer to determine whether he has a future there.

“If we go down, of course, I’m not going to make a hasty decision since I still have three years of contract and today we know how difficult it is to have a contract,” he told the French magazine Onze Mondial.

“It’s harder than before in any case. I have a family, so I will not make a stupid and hasty decision. I’ll go back there, chat with the club, see what’s going on, how they see it.

“For the moment I have not had direct or concrete contact with clubs. It seems premature given all that is going on at the moment. We’ll see what the future holds.

“As I said, there is no rush, we wait quietly. Today, the situation is worse. But it’s clear that going down could precipitate a lot.

“The championship hasn’t been officially stopped, but I think it will be. So we are waiting for a decision regarding relegation.

“They were talking about a reconstruction of the league, so moving to 14 [teams], which would allow us to stay and get two teams up. It would be to our advantage. The other solution is to go down, to be relegated, because we are last.”

Damour, 29, joined Hearts on a four-year contract from Cardiff City last August and has experienced a tumultuous first year in Scotland.

He took time to adapt to the pace of the game and admitted he will need to do better next season if he stays.

“I had trouble starting,” he said. “I may have arrived saying to myself, ‘this is it, I signed four years, it will be a little easier’. I was perhaps a little surprised because it is a different championship from England, it is much more committed, much more physical, so it was also necessary to adapt to the new league.

“And I would say that from December, it was much better and this is where I was able to put together my best games. Unfortunately, where I started to feel really good was just before the cut.

“It’s a shame it’s like that, anyway, the results are not positive. It will be up to me to do better from the start to get things back in place.”

Although not intending to leave Cardiff, Damour explained why he chose to take the four-year deal on offer at Tynecastle Park.

“A club called me during the transfer window and really showed great interest in me. They offered me a contract that I couldn’t refuse at the age of 28,” he said.

“Hearts, for those who don’t know, it’s a very big club in the Scottish league. For me, my family, it was hard to say no. I only had a year left in Cardiff. There were a lot of questions and I decided to take this 2 Loic Damour, right, joined Hearts on a fouryear deal from Cardiff City last August and has struggled to make an impact in his first season in Scotland. The midfielder has admitted he will need to do better next term if he stays at the club. opportunity. That’s why I went to Hearts.”

The player feels he has improved over the course of his time in Edinburgh and now understands Scottish football. “I simply improved in understanding the league – because it requires something other than England,” he said.

“That is to say that in Scotland the play is much less, it is more direct. You have less time. It’s a really physical league with a lot of impact, where you really don’t have time for possession.

“I simply had to put myself in mind and put into practice what the league was asking for. In January, I was able to start off well with the ingredients that the league requires. What I may not have been doing at the start.”

“I had trouble starting. I may have arrived saying to myself, ‘this is it, I signed four years, it will be a little easier’ ”

LOIC DAMOUR