Hearts defender Stephen Kingsley out for ‘months’ due to hamstring surgery

Hearts defender Stephen Kingsley will be sidelined well into 2025 as he prepares to undergo surgery on the hamstring injury he sustained against Aberdeen last weekend.

The 30-year-old was stretchered off in clear distress in the first half of the 1-1 draw with the Dons and head coach Neil Critchley confirmed on Friday that he is braced for a lengthy lay-off.

“Stephen will be having surgery on his hamstring so he’ll be facing a significant period of time out, which is obviously unfortunate for him and us, so that’s bad news,” said Critchley.

“It’ll be months, whether that is this season or going into next season, I wouldn’t want to say yet because he’s got to have the surgery and then we have to obviously see how that goes, but it will be a significant period of time, it’ll be months yet.”

Kingsley’s fellow defender Frankie Kent limped off with a quad issue in the same match but Critchley is hopeful the Englishman will be fit to face Dundee at Tynecastle on Saturday.

“Frankie, better news, he’s done some training at the back end of the week and we’re still hoping that he’ll be in contention for being involved tomorrow,” said Critchley.

Critchley admitted Kingsley’s impending absence will likely lead to defensive reinforcements being required in January.

“Potentially, yes,” he said. “It was an area of the pitch that we were looking at anyway, so with Stephen being out, that is something that we’ll have to consider I think.”

Critchley said that the injury to Kingsley – who can play centre-back or left-back – could open the door for Colombian left-back Andres Salazar, who has been restricted to just one appearance this term.

“Yes, it does,” he said. “Whenever there’s an injury in your position or near your position that can always have a bit of a domino effect. Players have to remain patient, they have to keep working hard and if that opportunity comes, if that’s through injury, then they have to be ready.”

Hearts are two points adrift at the foot of the William Hill Premiership and have not won any of their last five matches but Critchley has been heartened by his team’s general play in the 10 games since he took charge in October and dismissed any notion that they are close to crisis point.

“Oh no, we’re not even halfway through the season, you like to use those words, ‘it’s a crisis’, but I’m just focusing on the next game,” he said.

“I think since we joined the club in the past two months, we’ve had improvement in terms of our performances and now we’ve got a period of games coming up that we need to start putting some wins on the board.

“It’s an important period, both domestically and in Europe. We have a chance to build and things could look significantly different in a few weeks’ time.”