Tuesday 3 January 2017 17:31, UK
Hearts head coach Ian Cathro has confirmed he expects further movement of players in and out of Tynecastle this month.
Tony Watt is already on his way back to Charlton after his season-long loan was cut short and Cathro expects others to follow as he looks to put his stamp on the squad.
Conor Sammon, Juwon Oshaniwa and Alim Ozturk are some of the big-name players out of the first-team picture at present while Callum Paterson is facing 10 months out with knee ligament damage.
Hearts are also understood to be interested in Aberdeen wideman Niall McGinn; the 29-year-old Northern Ireland international is out of contract at Pittodrie in the summer and therefore is free to talk to other clubs.
Cathro told the Evening News: "A lot of the guys are at stages in their lives where they want to be playing regularly.
"We deal with it privately, support people and try to make the right decisions for the team to improve."
With the Premiership taking a break until late January, Cathro is prepared to bide his time as he assesses how best to use the funds at his disposal.
"The winter break gives me time to look back over all the games and over all the work we've done," he said.
"I'll assess and look into the market more now. It's a time to prepare what will be a really important couple of weeks of work for us.
"There are some areas of the squad we're targeting, but this window is very difficult to get exactly what you want. You have to take each situation as an individual thing and see what's available to us to improve."
Hearts' home defeat to Aberdeen on December 30 means they have just one win from their last six games and leaves them six points behind Aberdeen and eight points adrift of second-place Rangers.
