This season has been part of a hard upbringing for the younger members of this Hearts first-team squad.
There are a good few of them around, too, given the embargoes imposed on the Edinburgh club by the Scottish Football Association and Scottish Professional Football League prevents them from signing players of much greater experience. It is a reality which has affected Hearts' ambitions this term but which might also cause lasting damage to the players' careers.
It was a grave warning articulated by John Robertson yesterday. The former Hearts striker and manager does not consider the embargo to be an injustice dished out to a club already choked by administration - one whose creditors will tomorrow decide whether to back a Company Voluntary Arrangement. Instead he is concerned that the punishment was formulated without foresight for how it might affect the young players required to set up and become regular performers.
"If you run into the financial situation that Hearts ran into, you deserve your punishment," said Robertson. "But I don't think they looked at the embargo deeply enough. They just looked at the first team and thought, 'right, that's what you've got, get on with it'. We've still got to play in an Under-20 league.
"You just look at the make-up of Robbie Neilson's Under-20 team at the moment, there are four or five lads that are only 15 years old. That's not going to help them, that's the knock-down effect of this embargo. I don't think people realise the mental and physical pressure on the players.
"If these young lads [in the first team] are asked to continue, my only worry is medically how they're going to cope with it. Long-term, these lads could pick up injuries because their bodies are not ready."
Jason Holt is one who is currently recovering. The Hearts playmaker expects to be sidelined until February after fracturing his fifth metatarsal during the international break. "I'm on the crutches and in the boot for a while, so there's not much I can do."
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