Greek star set to sign

VALDAS IVANAUSKAS confirmed today he wants to make Greek star Hristos Karipidis his first signing.

The 23-year-old PAOK Salonika player, who can play in the centre or right side of defence, arrived in Edinburgh yesterday and was put through a gruelling medical at the club's Riccarton academy.

And Ivanauskas revealed that if, as expected, the player is given a clean bill of health, Hearts will make an offer for the defender who still has a year to run on his PAOK contract.

The Greek side have been crippled by financial worries this season and are willing to listen to offers for one of their biggest assets. Ivanauskas is also ready to finalise a deal to bring Chilean Mauricio Pinilla to Tynecastle on a year-long loan from Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon and is looking at a further five Lithuanian players.

Karipidis has vital UEFA Cup experience, having played in the competition last season with PAOK and Ivanauskas said: "We have had a look at Hristos and he is a player that we like. He had his medical yesterday and we are just waiting for the results to come back. If everything comes back okay and we can sort out his contract situation with PAOK, because he still has one year left with them, then we hope he will join us.

"I hope that I can bring in a few new faces.

I cannot say too much because we still have a lot of work to do but we are working very hard to identify the right people. We have a lot of players in on trial right now but we are just having a look at the moment."

Sporting Lisbon striker Pinilla is expected to complete his temporary move this week with an option for Hearts to extend the deal after 12 months, but he hopes that a move to Tynecastle could also pave the way to the English Premiership."It will be good to play in Scotland. It is an excellent platform to do that [play in the Premiership] by playing well in Scotland," he said.

Meanwhile Ivanauskas believes tomorrow night's friendly against Osasuna will be excellent preparation for next week's Champions League qualifier at Murrayfield against either Belarussian champions Shakhtyor Soligorsk or Siroki Brijeg of Bosnia.

He added: "Every pre-season is different but I think that this one has been even harder than normal because we are preparing for a Champions League qualifier very early in the campaign.

"The game against Osasuna will be good for our preparation for that match because they are a very good team with good players. They play in the Spanish league with some very good teams and they did very well last season.

"I hope that Craig [Gordon] will play in the Champions League game but Paul [Hartley] will probably not play and that is a big loss for us. We need our best players for the match, we need people like Paul, Craig , Edgaras [Jankauskas] and Deividas [Cesnauskis] fit because it will be a very difficult game for us."

Taken from the Scotsman