Gary Mackay-Steven will be missing for Hearts until after the World Cup break ends in December.
The winger has picked up a longer term injury and missed out for manager Robbie Neilson as the Jambos lost out to his former club Celtic 4-3 on Saturday. Hearts have a number of injuries they are dealing with but there's good news on the centre-back front, with Craig Halkett and Kye Rowles back running ahead of Thursday's Europa Conference League match with Latvian side RFS in Group A.
Neilson says it will be another fortnight or so before either of his defensive pairing can come back into contention. But experienced attacker Mackay-Steven won't be back on the pitch until at least after Qatar 2022, which starts in November. Neilson told the Edinburgh Evening News : "No centre-backs yet. Both of them are running now but they have just started so we are building them up. They will probably be another couple of weeks.
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"Peter Haring will be back. Gary Mackay-Steven is out until after the World Cup break with a broken foot.”
There was further injury scare in Saturday's match for Neilson when attackers Josh Ginnelly and Stephen Humphrys came off.
But the boss allayed fears: "I think they’ll be fine, Stephen was a knock on the foot, Josh was just a tight hamstring, just cramp so he should be fine."
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