Levein glad of fixtures break

CRAIG LEVEIN hopes the fortnight break in Hearts’ fixture schedule will afford his stricken strikeforce the chance to recover from injury.

Dennis Wyness has been the only fully fit forward available to the head coach in recent weeks with Mark de Vries, Ramon Pereira and Graham Weir struck down with a mixture of illness and injury.

Even surrogate striker Kevin McKenna has been missing with a knee injury but Levein is hoping the Canadian will be fit to join the talismanic De Vries in the starting XI for the Jambos’ next SPL match at Celtic Park a week on Saturday.

Weir has only just re-emerged at Hearts’ training complex at Riccarton after a bout of the mumps and is unlikely to be ready for the physically demanding trip to face the champions.

However, the manager reckons the free weekend to accommodate international fixtures will help him ease his squad closer to match fitness.

"The situation with the strikers still isn’t great but the thing we have in our favour is the international break," said Levein.

"I would hope that Kevin and Mark would be fit to face Celtic and it will be important to have them available.

"Ramon’s grandmother is ill so he has returned to Spain and his ankle is still bothering him in any case.

"Graham Weir came in for the first time yesterday. He’s shaken off the worst of the mumps but it really floored him and he’s lost a lot of weight.

"The doctor has advised him not to train until next week and because we’ll need everybody to be fully fit for Celtic I would doubt he’ll be ready."

De Vries’ return in particular will be crucial.

The Dutchman proved his worth in last week’s UEFA Cup tie against Braga by taking a pain-killing injection before netting the two goals which sent the club into the pot for the inaugural group stages of the competition.

Taken from the Scotsman