ROBBO TO LAND LITHUANIANS

Hearts head coach John Robertson is ready to hand his new Lithuanian midfield trio extended deals at Tynecastle.

The Jambos' boss has already seen enough of Saulius Mikoliunas, Marius Kizys and Deividas Cesnauskis to convince him to offer the three players permanent contracts at the club.

Mikoliunas and Kizys were the pick of the bunch from a number of Lithuanians who were invited to Edinburgh for a January training camp by new Hearts major shareholder Vladimir Romanov.

Mikoliunas, 22, has played six times so far while 19-year-old Kizys made his debut against Kilmarnock in the Bank of Scotland Premier League last weekend.

Lithuania captain Cesnauskis, 23, joined his fellow countrymen last week and made an impressive scoring debut at Rugby Park in the Tennent's Scottish Cup fourth-round replay win on Wednesday.

The three players were originally all signed until the end of the season, but Robertson will move quickly to tie them to the club on lengthier deals.

Robertson said: "The only reason they were on short-term contracts was to see if they could handle the way Scottish football is played.

"They also had to see if they liked the city and could settle here and they have done that.

"There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that they will sign long-term contracts - it would be foolish not to sign them.

"We have spoken to Mr Romanov already and he indicated that, if the players did well, then they would be here for a longer period of time and I have no reason to doubt that.

"Mikoliunas and Kizys worked on their fitness for a couple of weeks and showed in training and reserve games that they are ready to play.

"Deividas was playing with Spartak Moscow and played an international game last week so there was no doubt we could put him in right away against Kilmarnock.

"When you see what Mikoliunas has done in his short time here and see that Cesnauskis is keeping him out of the national team, then that just shows you the quality he has.

"Young Marius has not featured as much yet but he is every bit as good as the other two."

Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon believes the addition of the three Lithuanians to the squad has been an instant success.

He said: "They are excellent players, technically very gifted and they have added something that we have not had all season.

"They have got pace, like to go past players and we are looking a lot more dangerous now than we did in the first half of the season.

"The communication has not been too bad and the important thing is they know what their jobs are.

"It is good that there are three of them here because it might have been quite lonely if they had no-one to speak to. That has helped them settle and they are quite happy."

But Robertson will also move to sign on-loan striker Lee Miller on a permanent deal from Bristol City after the 21-year-old notched five goals in his first eight games for the Tynecastle side.

He said: "I spoke to City manager Brian Tinnion and he is going to have a chat with his chairman next week, but he doesn't see any problem.

"We always knew there was going to be a fee involved, but the clubs will sit down and thrash out a deal.

"Lee wants to stay with us, he is enjoying his football so we are hopeful we can tie it up as quickly as we can."

Taken from sportinglife.com