Mixu Paatelainen has major injury worries
Sport Staff

Mixu Paatelainen, the Hibernian manager, revealed yesterday that he could be missing seven first-team regulars for Thursday night’s Edinburgh derby against Heart of Midlothian at Tynecastle.

Hibernian are automatically without the suspended trio of Rob Jones, Sol Bamba and Colin Nish for their final encounter of the season with Hearts. Chris Hogg also faces a ban if the club lose their appeal against the red card that he was shown in Saturday’s 2-1 Clydesdale Bank Premier League defeat by Dundee United.

On top of that, they have injury concerns over Denes Rosa, David van Zanten and Grzegorz Szamotulski, the goalkeeper. Szamotulski sat out Saturday’s game with a knee problem, while Rosa, the midfield player, and Van Zanten, the full back, were both hurt against United.

After reiterating his criticism of Stevie O’Reilly’s decision to dismiss Hogg, the defender, for a late tackle on Craig Conway, Paatelainen said: “The problem does not stop there — we have another four or five nursing injuries. We are going to have plenty of players missing through injury and suspension, but we will have 11 fit players and it will be up to them to do the job.”
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There was much better news for Hearts as Lee Wallace and Ruben Palazuelos look set to play. The pair missed Sunday’s 2-0 defeat by Rangers but Csaba Laszlo, the manager, is confident that they will return.

Wallace, the left back, is making good progress after a virus and Palazuelos, who plays in midfield, is getting stronger after his ankle problem.

“I hope 100 per cent that both players will be OK,” Laszlo said. “Lee was close yesterday but said he didn’t feel strong enough to last the 90 minutes because of the virus he had. I think he will be OK for Hibs and we also hope that Ruben will make it.”

Laszlo took some positives from the Ibrox defeat despite falling to goals from Andrius Velicka, the former Hearts striker, and Kris Boyd.

“We had a lot of the ball,” the manager said. “But we lost goals at bad times and didn’t take our opportunities. But if we play like that against Hibs, I hope we can win.”

Mike Tullberg, the striker, also felt that Hearts should have gone away from Glasgow with something to show for their efforts. “It was quite disappointing as I thought we played quite well,” the Dane said. “We can be satisfied with our performance and I thought we should have got a point.

“We were unlucky to lose a goal right before half-time but didn’t show enough concentration for the corner. We were a bit unlucky not to be a goal up at half-time. I had a chance after three minutes, Bruno \ had a chance, \ Karipidis had a header and I don’t think they created anything, then they scored.”

Tullberg was making only his second start for Hearts, most of his season being ruined by a thigh problem. The on-loan Reggina forward’s future beyond the summer is uncertain but he is focused only on helping Hearts to retain third spot, which they hold from Dundee United by two points.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk