BEDNAR 'BETTER THAN EXPECTED'

Hearts manager George Burley revealed injured striker Roman Bednar is ahead of schedule in his recovery from knee surgery but the Gorgie boss was reluctant to pencil in the Edinburgh derby against Hibernian later in the month as his return date.

The Czech striker, a popular figure amongst the Tynecastle supporters after three goals in his first eight matches, was taken off shortly after scoring against Rangers in the Bank of Scotland Premier League at the end of September.

Whilst Burley admits the 22-year-old is making progress faster than expected after his operation, it may be too soon to expect him to feature against their city rivals a week on Saturday at Easter Road.

Burley told the club's official website www.heartsfc.co.uk: "It is just over two weeks now since surgery but we are very happy with his progression. We will see how he keeps going.

"It is too early [to know about making the Hibs game]. We said that it might be six weeks, but it is going better than we expected and so we must play it week by week."

Burley lost most of his squad to international duty last week ahead of their morale-boosting 1-1 draw with Celtic at Parkhead which keeps the Edinburgh side three points clear of the Hoops at the top of the SPL.

But the Jambos boss is glad to be back working with his players again as he prepared for the visit of Dunfermline on Saturday.

He said: "It's good that we have longer to build up this week!

"The boys are working hard, they are enjoying their football and the spirit is good. But we've had good sessions all season.

"We went through the video (of the Celtic game). We also discussed the week ahead as far as preparing for Saturday is concerned.

"We did some core stability work on their fitness which is an ongoing thing.

"You really want to do things right. Ideally, you want a week to build up to the game, but the good news is that the players are getting good habits and that is very important.

"Once you have good habits then you are able to do well and it showed last Saturday."

Taken from sportinglife.com