Injury blow for Levein

PAUL KIDDIE

HEARTS stars Mark de Vries and Jamie McAllister look set to miss the Jambos’ opening league game of the season this weekend, boss Craig Levein revealed today.

The pair limped out of Saturday’s friendly against Fulham at Tynecastle with hamstring injuries and are now struggling to make their side’s SPL kick-off against Dundee at Dens Park.

While the problems do not appear anything too serious for Levein to worry about, the manager is concerned they could prove sufficient to sideline both players for Saturday’s trip to Tayside.

McAllister felt his hamstring after a fresh air swipe at the ball in the first half of the Gorgie outfit’s 2-0 defeat, while De Vries suffered a similar fate moments later as he tried to get an effort on goal from a corner.

"I will have a better idea later today as to how they are but I would imagine they are both struggling for Saturday’s game against Dundee," said Levein.

"If they do miss that match I would be hopeful they would be okay for the following week."

The injury to De Vries was particularly frustrating for the Dutchman, who has been looking sharp throughout the pre-season preparations. And his premature departure took some of the cutting edge off Hearts’ attacking options against the Londoners.

"The galling thing about Mark is that he was only going to play for 45 minutes anyway," said Levein. "It’s frustrating for him as I don’t think he has had a pre-season where he has got through without any problems.

"I was looking forward to seeing him and Ramon [Pereira] in attack for the first time and I was quite happy with the way things were going until Mark had to go off. They had been doing quite well."

Taken from the Scotsman