Hearts will hold end-of-season talks with a large chunk of their first-team squad in an effort to plan for the future. Players whose contracts are due to expire in summer 2025 will come into focus as club officials look to remain pro-active in their business dealings.
A total of 14 players will have a year left on their deals come this summer and Hearts intend to offer extensions to some of those. Others will need to produce more consistent performances next season in order to earn a longer stay at Tynecastle Park. It is also possible that one or two could be sold before the 2024/25 campaign begins to maximise their transfer market value.
The fourteen players in question are: midfielders Jorge Grant, Cammy Devlin, and Finlay Pollock; defenders Nathaniel Atkinson, Stephen Kingsley, Alex Cochrane, Toby Sibbick, and Lewis Neilson; goalkeepers Zander Clark, Craig Gordon, and Harry Stone; and wingers Barrie McKay and Liam Boyce. When they report to Riccarton for pre-season training in June, all of them will be entering the last 12 months of their contracts.
Hearts want to make sure they have as much control on squad mobility as they can and retain onto their important players. The most well-known person on the list is Shankland, who was unable to reach an agreement to renew his contract earlier this year. English teams were interested in Cochrane, but Hearts would need to get at least £2 million in exchange for the left-back. After the competitive season concludes, those two and others will be invited for more discussions.
Head coach Steven Naismith told the Edinburgh News, “We will speak with some players in the summer to see if anything can be done.” “The men that have one year remaining are mostly what we see sitting there. A couple of them exist, each at a distinct level. Before we can possibly extend their contract, some have to give us more in the upcoming season. At the end of the season, we’ll look to rapidly complete any that won’t.”
There will be plenty of debate about Shankland’s future both inside and outside of Tynecastle, but Hearts are clear that they want to keep him in Edinburgh. Joe Savage, the sporting director, has him as one of his top priorities going forward. Naismith said, “Yeah, we want him to stay at the club.” “A few weeks ago, we broke up since there was no point in continuing at that point. We desired to concentrate on the football.
“We will hopefully talk to Kingsley at one point. He’s got a year left. There are a few others. Alex Cochrane comes into that category as well. These things will play out and we will get to an end point and move on and you look to replace. Or the guys renew and they are still within the group.”
Hearts players whose contracts expire this summer are midfielders Beni Baningime, Peter Haring and Andy Halliday, plus goalkeeper Michael McGovern. Halliday and McGovern are on loan at Motherwell and Livingston until the end of the season. Baningime has not agreed to sign a new deal so far and the others have not been offered one.
