The flu "knocked out" almost half of the "Hearts" team © EuroFootball.com

Edinburgh team may have to face Saturday's Scottish Premier League match against Inverness Caledonian Thistle without even 12 of their main team players, as they have all been hit by a sudden flu epidemic. In total, including all the substitute footballers, 23 team players have fallen ill with the flu.

Among all these players - there is also a goalkeeper from Lithuania, as well as the team leaders Lee Miller and Paul Hartley. All these players missed the team's Thursday training session.

For this reason, the Hearts team appealed to the Scottish Premier League management to postpone this match, but this request was rejected after an SPL board teleconference, as SPL stated that there are enough other healthy footballers in the Hearts team who can participate in the match.

Yesterday, the team's head coach John Robertson held a press conference, during which he presented the future team composition for Saturday's match. A Lithuanian goalkeeper is included in the starting lineup. Only 10 players remain from the main team, so there will be quite a few reserve players among the substitutes.

It is still unclear whether any of the main team players will recover in time for the match, but it seems that they will all watch the game from the stands at best.

As mentioned earlier, one of the undeniable team leaders will miss this match due to a red card.