Heart of Midlothian fly out to Tenerife on Thursday for a warm-weather training camp - but Lawrence Shankland and Zander Clark won't join up with the squad until they are back.

Steven Naismith's team will spend a week in the Canary Islands preparing for the upcoming season. 

Hearts will play their first friendly behind closed doors tomorrow (Wednesday) having returned to pre-season last Wednesday. 

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"Good," Naismith said of the first week back. "It is always a bit full-on. The start of the week is full-on for the staff as the players come in, testing and then back on the pitch. It is just a change of routine for everybody that is the biggest thing.

"You get to the end of the week and everybody is knackered, mentally and physically for the players. But it has been really good. The conditioning of the players coming back, in the modern day they all do come back in good condition. A lot of the ones who had disrupted seasons last season have worked extremely hard to get to a good level, [Liam] Boyce, [Barrie] McKay, [Craig] Halkett to name a few."

Naismith confirmed the travelling party to Tenerife will consist of 26 players, 24 outfielders plus two goalkeepers. Nathaniel Atkinson and Toby Sibbick will remain with the B team with both available for transfer. They will be joined midway through next week by Shankland and Clark who have been given extra time off after being part of Steve Clarke's Scotland squad at Euro 2024. They will link up with the first-team squad on its return. At the time of writing Costa Rica were still to play their third and final group game at the Copa America. It's unclear as of yet when Kenneth Vargas will join up with his team-mates.

Youngsters Aidan Denholm, Macaulay Tait, James Wilson and Finlay Pollock will all be part of the squad having established themselves as part of the first-team. Cammy Devlin and Kye Rowles won't feature in Wednesday's friendly having been given a few days extra off following their time with Australia. They will, however, travel to Tenerife.

Calem Nieuwenhof, Pollock and new signing James Penrice have yet to return to full training after injuries in the second half of last season. They will step up their training in Tenerife.

Lawrence Shankland and Zander Clark will join up with Hearts next week.Lawrence Shankland and Zander Clark will join up with Hearts next week. (Image: SNS)

"Him [Nieuwenhof] and Finlay are probably are on the same trajectory," Naismith said. "They are back doing bits on the pitch. They will join the group next week. We have probably been a bit more cautious with the two of them this week than we could of.

"James Penrice is another one who is in that bracket of doing some training but they will all come back into training next week."

Naismith, as he explained to Hearts Standard recently, places a lot of importance in a training camp when it comes to team bonding. The Hearts head coach has been encouraged by the way the new players have already begun integrating within the group well and time away allows those relationships to grow stronger.

"As I've said many times, when we are recruiting the type of person is a big part," he said. "I was comfortable when we did come back the squad that's here are a brilliant group at integrating players and making them feel welcome and the guys coming in fit into the mould of them all.

"Overall it's been really good, there does seem to be a togetherness in driving people on in the hard moments."

Hearts squad going to Tenerife: Craig Gordon, Ryan Fulton, Daniel Oyegoke, Lewis Neilson, Craig Halkett, Frankie Kent, Kye Rowles, Stephen Kingsley, Alex Cochrane, James Penrice, Calem Nieuwenhof, Aidan Denholm, Macaulay Tait, Finlay Pollock, Cammy Devlin, Beni Baningime, Jorge Grant, Yan Dhanda, Blair Spittal, Alan Forrest, Yutaro Oda, Barrie McKay, Musa Drammeh, Kyosuke Tagawa, Liam Boyce, James Wilson.

Not going to Tenerife: Zander Clark, Lawrence Shankland, Kenneth Vargas, Nathaniel Atkinson, Toby Sibbick.