Hearts boss John McGlynn looking to land striker on loan

By BARRY ANDERSON
Published on Monday 21 January 2013 12:05

HEARTS are keen to recruit a new striker on loan from England following Friday’s capture of Danny Wilson from Liverpool.

The defender made his debut in Saturday’s 4-1 defeat by Celtic and the Tynecastle management team are now seeking to reinforce their forward line if possible. Manager John 
McGlynn and director of football John Murray have scouted under-21 matches in England on a weekly basis recently and have identified several strikers they believe could succeed in the Scottish Premier League.

McGlynn wants to add more potency to his attack but stressed getting players of 
Wilson’s quality and experience would be difficult.

The SPL lifted Hearts’ transfer embargo on Thursday, however the Edinburgh club are restricted to signing under-21s and only to replace players who leave. Wilson took Ryan McGowan’s place in the squad, which leaves Peter Enckelman’s void to be filled if necessary.

“Anything is a possibility. That’s all it is, a possibility,” said McGlynn today. “We have an option (to sign someone) now whereas we didn’t have that before. There are no guarantees. It’s well documented that we haven’t been scoring goals, or at least not as many as we would like. It’s fairly obvious that’s what we would want to do. We’re restricted to under-21s and I’m not suggesting that we’re not looking, but how easy is it to dig up an under-21 player? Danny was a different situation but digging up a striker of the same calibre and standard is just not as easy.”

Wilson signed a six-month loan agreement to leave Liverpool on Friday and was granted a baptism of fire at Celtic Park 24 hours later. He deputised for the suspended Marius Zaliukas in central defence and, while not at fault for any of the four goals Hearts conceded, will

require more time to achieve full match sharpness.

Zaliukas is available this weekend for the Scottish Communities’ League Cup semi-final with Inverness at Easter Road, posing McGlynn the problem of how to accommodate the Lithuanian, Wilson and Andy Webster in the same defence. One option would be to pair Webster and Zaliukas in central defence and deploy

Wilson at left-back, where he previously played for Rangers.

Taken from the Scotsman