Hearts have had a ridiculously hard time with injury over the past two seasons and there are no signs of it letting up.
Loic Damour and Craig Halkett are the latest Jambos to go down with injury, with the latter looking likely to be out until the new year (Edinburgh Evening News).
Halkett’s out for a while. (Photo by Ewan Bootman/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Craig Levein has a very strong squad on paper but he is left helpless at times with the amount of injuries his team suffers.
Hearts’ injury luck has cost them
It’s gutting for Levein that for the past two seasons, he has had his strongest XI almost wiped out with injury, before Halloween.
By the end of October last term, he had lost Christophe Berra, Steven Naismith, Uche Ikpeazu and John Souttar to long-term injury.
Hearts talisman Naismith has really struggled with injury. (photo by Alan Rennie/Action Plus via Getty Images)
Peter Haring was struggling with multiple knocks that still trouble him to this day.
At this time Hearts had made a League Cup semi-final and were top of the league. After losing what some regarded as five of their key stars, their season fell off a cliff. They’ve picked up just 32 points since October 28 last year.
This season has been no different. The Jambos are already missing Jamie Walker, Conor Washington, Ben Garuccio, Damour, Halkett, Haring, Naismith and Souttar.
Souttar is still missing. (photo by David Young/Action Plus via Getty Images)
The likes of Michael Smith, Joel Pereira and Callumn Morrison have all been sidelined for more than one game at some stage too.
It leaves the likes of Sean Clare and Steven MacLean standing as the only Jambos to have come through the past year without any major knocks.
When you’re fighting to win over a crowd displeased with results over the past year, you need all your best men firing. It doesn’t help that many of them have ended up in the treatment room for lengthy spells.