Heart of Midlothian have identified one transfer target for the January window.

The club are currently looking ahead to the next two transfer windows as Neil Critchley looks to put his stamp on the squad. 

In his quarterly update, chief executive Andrew McKinlay revealed the head coach is keen to operate with a smaller squad. 

Despite injuries to Calem Nieuwenhof, Yutaro Oda, and Gerald Taylor, as well as Beni Baningime missing through illness, Critchley had to leave Andres Salazar, Musa Drammeh, and Macaulay Tait out of the squad for Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Kilmarnock at Tynecastle Park. 

Looking beyond January, Hearts have a number of players out of contract at the end of the season, including Craig Gordon, Zander Clark, Jorge Grant, Barrie McKay, Liam Boyce, and Lawrence Shankland with changes expected over the next two windows.

“We’re hoping to do some business in January but what I would say is we have a big squad,” McKinlay told HeartsTV. “I’m not saying people have to go for people to come in but it puts demands on the manager to manage such a big squad.

“I think Neil is certainly of the view that he would prefer a smaller squad. We might not manage that in January, it’s a difficult time, but we have already identified one person we are looking very closely at. Will we get them? Who knows but we will try and strengthen and then we will look toward the summer.

“We are already preparing for the summer, that’s the way recruitment works, in particular now working with analytics. We are already looking at the positions that we think we’ll need. That will be something when Graeme [Jones] comes in there will be a real focus on.”

Hearts will be using Jamestown Analytics to guide their recruitment with a deal set to be announced imminently. 

“We are already using it for player identification,” McKinlay confirmed. “Both for January but more fundamentally the summer.

“There could be a big overhaul come the summer.”