Hearts chief promises new faces in January sales

The Jambos have dropped 13 points from their last five league games and suffered their third defeat on the bounce on Saturday to Inverness at Tynecastle.

Goals from Christophe Berra and Andrius Velicka had hauled Hearts back into the match after Russell Duncan and John Rankin had given Caley a 2-0 lead with less than an hour gone. However, Hearts had been reduced to ten men when Eduardas Kurskis was shown his second yellow card of the game and his departure signalled the beginning of the end, sub Graham Bayne slotting past makeshift keeper Lee Wallace.

The performance was as disappointing as the result and Caley's second goal saw dozens of Hearts supporters head for the exits and chants of "Are you watching, Romanov?" rang out round the ground. The club's supporters clearly long for some continuity in team selection but sport director Korobochka believes that adding to his squad could be the only way to rectify the current situation and vowed to make yet more changes when the window opens next week. He said: "Next month sees the opening of the transfer window and it would be fair to say we expect there to be changes as we look to strengthen the team and improve our results. You always expect some kind of movement during the window. We have some quality players here but nevertheless we always have positions we might want to strengthen.

"If it so happens that the clubs and players involved can agree something, then new faces will more than likely arrive here.

"The Christmas week and into New Year is a key period for us and if the current team proves to be incapable of getting the right results, then something will have to happen as regards changes."

Having already brought in a number of new faces in the summer and changed their goalkeeper several times over the last month, Korobochka insisted that his squad may still need some time to gel on the park.

But, speaking in his programme notes ahead of the Boxing Day clash with St Mirren, he warned his players that they cannot continue to under-perform or they risk falling out of contention for a place in his starting line-up: "Comparing the squad to the one which was here last season at this time, there has been a lot of changes. We have the likes Eggert Jonsson, Michael Stewart, Christian Nade and Ruben Palazuelos and it might be a case of giving these players more time to gel.

"It is not enough to put your heart into what you do, you must put your soul into it. Maybe some of the players don't realise that – but they will have to realise it very quickly as ultimately we cannot keep disappointing the fans."