Hearts' Christophe Berra set for scan on ankle injury

Hearts captain Christophe Berra expects to go for a scan on his injured ankle in the next 48 hours, saying he can no longer play through the pain barrier.

Christophe Berra has been playing after having pain-killing injections. Picture: SNS.

The Scotland centre-back has been an ever-present in the Tynecastle side this term but having nursed his injury through the past few fixtures and taken pain-killing injections ahead of last weekend’s Scottish Cup quarter-final defeat and Friday night’s capital derby loss, he says he now needs to ensure he does not do any long-lasting damage.

“The last two games I’ve taken an injection, the first game was fine for the whole game but [against Hibs] I could feel it in the second half. I’ll probably get a scan at the start of the week and see how it is. I did it four or five weeks ago on the astro and two days before the Motherwell game I had another bad one.

“The swelling went down and I got an injection and played through that because it was a big game and the Hibs one was big, but I’ve got to watch I don’t do too much damage to myself.

“I don’t think it’s that bad, but it’s niggling and won’t go away and it’s not good to be taking an injection every week.”

It does mean it is likely to add to Hearts’ growing list of injury absentees and that he may miss out on Alex McLeish’s first games in charge of Scotland, but he says the priority is to get fully fit.

Berra refuses to use injuries as an excuse for the cup exit or the derby defeat. “As a team we need to do better, especially next season,” he added. “But we’ve now got three massive games to make sure we get in that top six, which is going to be tight.”