HEARTS midfielder Nerijus Barasa has suffered a demoralising setback after the recurrence of a hamstring injury and could be absent for a further month.

The Lithuanian made two impressive substitute appearances for Hearts before picking up a strain on his hamstring in late January, although he was expected to return to full fitness by the beginning of this month.

Director of football Jim Duffy today revealed further fitness problems for the player, which occurred just as he was preparing to state his case for reinstatement to the first team.

"Barasa had a recurrence of his hamstring.

"He's not even close to being fit just now," admitted Duffy, who also detailed that Hearts supporters will still have some time to wait before seeing Neil McCann back in action after knee ligament trouble.

"We intend to nurse Barasa along slowly but he is further behind McCann in terms of fitness and Neil isn't ready yet either. He went back to the specialist at the end of last week and he is hopefully going to step his programme up soon. But his is a knee ligament injury and that's something we must be very careful with.

"He will be looking to get back into all aspects of training, but he certainly won't be ready to play in the next couple of weeks. All we are looking at with McCann at the moment is to get him back involved in some competitive training.

"After that he will need to get his confidence back in terms of how much he trusts the knee again, so you are talking a minimum of two weeks before he could look at being able to play."

Head coach Graham Rix is keen to have McCann return as soon as possible, especially with Rudi Skacel doubtful for Saturday's trip to Inverness due to an ankle injury.

Meanwhile, Rix will also be forced to make a late decision on Saulius Mikoliunas for Inverness after he limped off at half-time in yesterday's 4-1 reserve win over Livingston. The Lithuanian frontman suffered knocks to his ankle and knee although coach John McGlynn is hoping he can shake them off before the weekend.

He said: "He took a couple of hefty challenges during the game and was feeling it in both his ankle and his knee.

We will have to assess him over the next couple of days and we are hoping that he will be available for selection by the end of the week."

Juho Makela was on the scoresheet for Hearts in a 4-1 win at Forthbank but he was also forced off with 12 minutes remaining when he felt his hamstring tight.

However McGlynn is also keeping his fingers crossed that the injury is nothing too serious.

He added: "Juho signalled that he would have to come off near the end because he was feeling a bit of a reaction in his hamstring.

"The physio has had a look at it though and he doesn't feel that it is going to be too serious."

On a brighter note for the Tynecastle side Craig Sives returned to action for the first time since pre-season training.

Taken from the Scotsman