© EuroFootball.com
Good news for Edinburgh "Hearts" fans - Lithuanian national team players are returning to the team lineup, along with Czech Michal Pospišilas and Portuguese Jose Goncalves, who are recovering from injuries.
Experienced "Hearts" forward E.Jankauskas has not played for the Scottish club since the Champions League third qualifying round match against Athens "AEK" on August 23. N.Barasa got injured during the preseason camp in Austria and has not played any games this season.
Although neither N.Barasa nor E.Jankauskas helped the Lithuanian national team in the European Championship qualifying matches and did not play in the reserve team match against "Aberdeen" on Tuesday, where the only and winning goal for the second "Hearts" team was scored by Andrius Velička, club head coach Valdas Ivanauskas hopes that at least E.Jankauskas will be in the team for Sunday's derby against Edinburgh "Hibernian".
"Edgaras is regaining his physical form and has been training for four days. He is training successfully and has good chances for the weekend. Since he has not played for so long due to injury, we must be cautious because there is some risk. I would not risk letting him play for the reserves. He is very experienced, and we feel that it is better for him to just train," - said V.Ivanauskas to one of the Scottish newspapers on Tuesday.
"Nerijus Barasa has few chances. He returned to training with the main team today. However, I think he still needs playing practice, so he should play for the reserve team in their next match (away against "Dundee Utd") next Tuesday," - continued the coach.
Meanwhile, long-time inactive striker M.Pospišilas and defender J.Goncalvesas, according to V.Ivanauskas, will definitely not be ready for the weekend match: "Michal trained on Saturday and Sunday, and today (Tuesday) he wanted to play, but there was a somewhat reaction, so we won't take any risks. I hope he will be healthy and training next week. Jose only fully trained yesterday for the first time and looks good. He still needs playing practice, so next week we should try to let him play in the reserve team match."
