Hearts to make call on Adam Forrester after bounce game against Ross County

Hearts are to make a decision on whether to recall Adam Forrester from his St Johnstone loan after he has played for the Tynecastle club in a bounce game on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old moved to St Johnstone last week under the Scottish FA’s new cooperation agreement scheme, which allows flexibility for developing Scottish players to move to and fro between clubs that have a formal link-up.

Forrester wasn’t registered in time to play for the Perth side in their win over Ross County on Friday, and Hearts now have to contend with a thigh injury that is set to sideline summer signing Christian Borchgrevink out for up to eight weeks.

Derek McInnes and his staff are pondering whether or not to use the flexibility of the new loan arrangement to bring Forrester back to cover for the injury. Alan Forrest started at right wing-back for Hearts in Sunday’s win over Dundee United but was replaced at half-time by Alexandros Kyziridis.

Speaking after the game, McInnes said there was no natural fit for the position and so he would “take a breath” before making a decision on Forrester.

“We got the news [on Saturday], but he could be out for six to eight weeks, effectively, I think,” he told the Hearts Standard. “Which was bizarre for me how it came about. He trained fine on Thursday. No kind of real issues, reported about a tightness on Friday, we got him scanned just to make sure.

“And also with Adam going to St Johnstone on that cooperation loan. He never gets registered in time. I think it was a St Johnstone issue because obviously he never got involved on Friday night.

“But we need to take a breath on that tomorrow. We’ll sit down in the football department and we’ll just see what’s the best way forward because without Borchgrevink, we didn’t really have that natural right-back or wing-back effectively today.”

Forrester played in the Premier Sports Cup group stages for Hearts but under the new rules he would be eligible to play for either the Tynecastle club or St Johnstone in this weekend’s second round. However, he would be cup tied for one or the other for any subsequent games in the competition.

The cooperation agreement allows the player to move back and forward to play in league matches for either club throughout the duration of his loan spell.