Lawrence Shankland's Hearts future takes centre stage again - 'not a question for me'

Hearts caretaker boss Liam Fox says he is in the dark over Lawrence Shankland’s future despite reports that negotiations have reopened over a new deal as the captain continued his recent goal spree.

After a largely disappointing season for the usually prolific Scotland international, Shankland made it five goals in three games with a second successive brace as Hearts overcame Motherwell 3-0.

The former Dundee United man now has nine for the season and his purple patch has again reignited interest in what the future holds for the out of contract 29-year-old, with suggestions that he could yet sign a new contract. However, Fox, who made it two wins from two since replacing the sacked Neil Critchley, admits he is not in a position to offer any clarity on Shankland’s position.

Lawrence Shankland scored twice for Hearts against Motherwell. | SNS Group

He said: “That is not a question for me to answer at this moment in time I’m afraid. All I can say is that Lawrence Shankland has been great for me this last couple of weeks and he’s scored some important goals. So we’ll see where that one goes.

“I’ll repeat what I said last week, if you put Lawrence Shankland in these types of positions and you do work on how you’re going to get the ball to him, he will score goals. That’s evident and obvious from his spell here but also previously in his career.

Hearts players ‘deserve credit’

“But not just everything’s about Lawrence, there’s got to be people that make passes for him and run ahead of the ball for him. So it’s a team effort and I think they deserve huge credit over the last couple of weeks for how they’ve performed and the goals they’ve scored but also how hard they had to work without the ball today as well.”

Shankland opened the scoring in the 30th minute with a fine strike from just outside the box from debutant goalkeeper Ryan Fulton’s kick out. Motherwell then had an equaliser disallowed before the break after defender Dan Casey – standing just offside – was ruled to be impeding Fulton’s view as Callum Slatterly rifled in a fierce drive from just outside the box.

Shankland doubled Hearts’ lead on the hour mark with a glancing header from James Penrice’s cross before Alan Forrest knocked in the rebound after goalkeeper Aston Oxborough kept out substitute Yan Dhanda’s effort.

Hearts caretaker boss Liam Fox. | SNS Group

Motherwell boss Michael Wimmer was not impressed by the five-minute delay to proceedings as VAR and then referee Ryan Lee considered whether Casey was offside for the disallowed goal.

He said: “My only thing is what I always say, and I say this also in Austria and Germany, if the VAR says something then in my opinion it should be a clear mistake. If VAR takes five minutes and the referee takes five minutes again at the monitor, then for me it could not be a clear decision. So this is the only thing I want to say.

“So please let the referee take responsibility and say goal or no goal and you should be brave enough. Each guy makes mistakes and no worries, then it was a mistake, but if you need 10 minutes to make a decision I think it’s a long time.”