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Hearts midfielder Calem Nieuwenhof is currently sidelined with another hamstring issue after suffering a similar problem during the summer. The Australian has yet to play in the Premiership under head coach Derek McInnes and club medical staff are hoping he won’t be missing for too long. Nieuwenhof was troubled by hamstring problems last year and this year and is now recovering before attempting to regain fitness. He joins goalkeeper Ryan Fulton and midfielder Finlay Pollock on the injury list at Riccarton, although Fulton is making progress towards a return before the end of the year. Norwegian right-back Christian Borchgrevink is fit and available for selection after recovering from a thigh problem. He was injured in the opening league game of the season and has not featured since. McInnes explained to the Edinburgh News that the defender has just been unable to force his way onto the substitutes’ bench because of Hearts’ consistent recent form. Other players fit but unable to claim a sub slot in the last two games are striker James Wilson, winger Alan Forrest and midfielder Sander Kartum. All of the above are eager for more competitive football. McInnes stressed that no-one left out of matchday squads has done anything wrong, it is simply the result of Hearts’ extensive first-team pool. “Borchgrevink is fine,” said McInnes. “I’ve kept the same bench because nobody really deserves to come off it. Ageu came on to the bench against Celtic, and Alan Forrest misses out. You are trying to cover every base. I like to have two wider players and Blair Spittal is different from Alan, Ageu is different from others. The way I like to do it with the subs is: A goalkeeper, two defenders, two midfielders, two wide players, two strikers. It's tough. “Borchgrevink has actually trained really well this week. He is doing well and putting his best foot forward, as they all are. Borch, Sander, James Wilson and Alan Forrest, they have done nothing wrong to be left out. It just the situation we are dealing with.” In the aftermath of Wednesday night’s 2-2 draw at St Mirren, which maintained Hearts’ unbeaten Premiership start, McInnes detailed the challenge of trying to keep players happy. He named the same starting line-up for the sixth successive game. Landry Kabore and Tomas Magnusson impressed as substitutes in Paisley. “I've got a squad full of that at the minute. The boys are itching,” said McInnes. “Obviously, it's the same team six games in a row, which is unheard of in football. Unheard of for me, especially. “Every time the team wins, the other boys are maybe starting to feel a wee bit further away from it because there's every chance it's going to be the same team. But you would never know how they've trained. I think Kabore and Magnusson and everybody else was itching to get on. Everybody's waiting for that call. I wanted to try and keep two strikers on the pitch the whole time. Obviously, we ended up with three at one point. “It's good that both my strikers scored. My other striker, Kabore, gets one chalked off. We looked a threat tonight. We were guilty of passing up a few good chances. We had a couple of really good moments that we should have made a bit more of. We've not won the game, and everybody expects us to win the game today. But we know you have to be almost pitch-perfect when you come here. “You need to deal with so much that comes your way when you play St Mirren. They ask the question of you, the game hits you right between the eyes. Would you be ready for it? If you don't deal with that as well as you need to, then the likelihood is you can suffer. We suffered, but we reacted, and we reacted well.” READ MORE: Hearts to improve with two players identified to make an impact
