ByBrian McLauchlinBBC Sport Scotland Senior Reporter<\/p>\n
Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts will be without key defender Stuart Findlay for six weeks while record signing Eduardo Ageu will miss the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
Head coach Derek McInnes also confirmed goalkeeper Craig Gordon's shoulder injury could keep him out of Scotland's March friendlies against Japan and Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
Findlay, 30, has been a pivotal figure for the league leaders having started all 28 Premiership matches in the middle of defence, but was forced off in the win over Falkirk with a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n
Brazilian midfielder Ageu made the first start of an injury-hit debut season against Rangers at Ibrox, but was taken off and will now be sidelined until next season because he needs thigh surgery.<\/p>\n
Gordon has also played limited minutes for Hearts this term, but is one of Scotland's key players as they prepare for a first World Cup finals since 1998.<\/p>\n
Beni Baningime, Oisin McEntee and Sabah Kerjota also have knocks but still have a chance of playing against Aberdeen on Saturday as Hearts chase a first league title since 1960.<\/p>\n
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McInnes says he hopes Findlay and captain Lawrence Shankland, who has been missing since 17 January with a hamstring injury, will be back for the final pre-split game against Motherwell on 11 April.<\/p>\n
Another key figure, midfielder Cammy Devlin, is due back in "two or three weeks" according to McInnes, as is defender Stephen Kingsley.<\/p>\n
Hearts are four points clear of Rangers at the top of the Premiership.<\/p>\n
"As it stands we had 11 players unavailable to train today, but we've still got enough to train and put a strong team out and a strong squad out on Saturday," McInnes said.<\/p>\n
"So my focus is the ones that are available, and just trying to get one or two who are in the 50-50 category available for the weekend.<\/p>\n
"It's easy to feel sorry for yourself, easy to think: 'why us? why me?' But it's unrealistic to go through a full campaign [without injuries]. <\/p>\n
"It's a league for as reason, you have to go through these different tests and challenges.<\/p>\n
"There's no doubt we're getting challenged at the minute. Once we get through the next four games we will ideally be a bit stronger going into the final run in.<\/p>\n
"It will almost feel like a transfer window opening up in April. So you've got to take the good with the bad."<\/p>\n
Midfielder McEntee went to see a specialist on Wednesday morning for a shoulder issue after a scan revealed "fairly positive" news.<\/p>\n
Baningime has some bruising on his lower leg and McInnes says the midfielder is hopeful he can train on Friday and feature at Tynecastle against Aberdeen.<\/p>\n
Kerjota, meanwhile, picked up a hip strain in a closed door friendly against Dundee on Tuesday but may well be fit to play too.<\/p>\n
Injuries to Findlay, Ageu & Gordon hit HeartsImage source, SNSImage caption, Stuart Findlay has started every league game for Hearts at centre-backByBrian McLauchlinBBC Sport Scotland Senior Repor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-decor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp1.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}