Hearts boss Steven Naismith keen to get ‘deal over the line’ for new recruit before Rangers game

Steven Naismith has revealed Hearts are close to adding another new signing ahead of Saturday’s Premiership opener at home to Rangers.

The Jambos have already bolstered their squad significantly this summer with the additions of Yan Dhanda, Blair Spittal, James Penrice, Gerald Taylor, Ryan Fulton, Musa Drammeh and Daniel Oyegoke.

And manager Naismith expects to have another new recruit in the door in time for their league curtain-raiser at Tynecastle.

“We’re happy we got those players in early, it makes a difference because the longer the players are here, the more settled they become. We learned that from last pre-season,” he told Sky Sports on Wednesday morning.

“We’ll hopefully have one more in today that will improve us and then after that, it’s more about reacting to anything that happens. There has been a lot of work over the last two or three days to get the deal over the line and it will hopefully get done in time that we can have him available for the weekend.”

Naismith also said there had been no approach from any club for talismanic captain Lawrence Shankland – who has a year left on his deal – amid fresh reports that he is on Rangers’ wanted list.

“There’s no change,” he said. “There’s been all these reports coming out going down every avenue. ‘He’s leaving’, ‘he’s maybe leaving’, ‘he’s on a list’, ‘he’s not on a list’. But we’ve had no conversations about any of our players.

“We had conversations about Alex Cochrane (who was sold to Birmingham) that developed into something that was serious and the deal got done because everybody was satisfied with it but we have had no information, no contact with anybody about any other player at the club.”