MIGUEL Pallardo, a key player in Hearts' Championship triumph last season, is to miss the start of this campaign because of an Achilles problem. Robbie Neilson, the Tynecastle club's manager, expects to be without the Spanish midfielder for a week or two, and is awaiting a precise diagnosis from a specialist.
Hearts are at home to Arbroath in a League Cup match on Thursday, then are at home to St Johnstone in the league three days later. Two of Neilson’s new signings, striker Juanma and defender Blazej Augustyn, should be available for those games after being left out of Sunday’s friendly with Everton as a precaution. Prince Buaben is a doubt, however, and Neilson is set to omit the midfielder from Thursday’s squad with the aim of having him available for Sunday.
Pallardo was seen wearing a moon boot while watching the 3-1 defeat by Everton, but Neilson is hopeful that he will be back in action before long. “He’s in the boot as a precaution, because he’s got a wee problem with his Achilles tendon,” the manager said. “I think he’ll be out for a week or two, but we’re waiting for a specialist to have a look at it this week.”
Neilson has already lost Soufian El Hassnaoui, the Dutch striker, for several months because of knee damage.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here