Hearts are expected to hold a fresh round of talks with Prince Buaben after the midfielder revealed he wants to stay at the club 'forever'.
Hearts are expected to hold a fresh round of talks with Prince Buaben after the midfielder revealed he wants to stay at the club 'forever'.
The former Dundee United player signed a 12-month contract in the summer to be reunited with Craig Levein, the Hearts director of football, following spells with Watford and Carlisle United.
A return to Scottish football seems to have reinvigorated the Ghana internationalist, who left Tannadice in 2011 but failed to make an impact south of the border. The one-time Ajax trainee scored his fourth goal in 15 appearances for Hearts in Saturday's 4-1 victory over Queen of the South and he has proved a major influence on the Gorgie side's incredible opening to the campaign.
The red card he received in the 4-1 win over Falkirk in August has proved the only real blot on his copybook so far and the player himself has spoken of his satisfaction with life at Tynecastle.
Potential suitors could begin discussions with the 26-year-old in the coming weeks but his agent, Ladi Salami, is understood to have held initial talks with Hearts head coach Robbie Neilson following the recent 2-0 win over Rangers and Buaben is keen for an agreement to be reached.
He said: "If it was up to me, I would like to stay here forever. Hopefully I can stay as long as possible. I've been speaking to the gaffer and he's happy for me to stay. I'm happy as well. Hearts is a good family club. We are still talking, so hopefully we can get it sorted soon.
"I feel at home here. I'm getting support from the fans, from the manager and from Craig Levein as well. The players have been amazing as well. As a footballer, that's what you want. You want to be somewhere you are happy. Once you're happy, it brings the best out of you."
In an eventful return to the starting line-up against Queens following an injury, Buaben missed a first-half penalty before scoring in the second half to ensure Hearts took their unbeaten record in the league to 15 matches. In an interview with the Edinburgh Evening News, he added: "I knew after I missed that I had to keep my head up. The boys were telling me the same thing: just to stay positive and keep going.
"Then I got a goal, which helped. Missing the penalty came right back into my head as soon as I scored and I was so happy and relieved."
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 hereComments are closed on this article