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Former Hearts midfielder Ryan Stevenson has admitted that the Jambos can not keep relying on Lawrence Shankland to bail them out every time.
Hearts have made a dismal start to their league campaign and sacked Steven Naismith last month.
The Jambos are currently looking for a new manager and tonight they are set to start their Conference League journey against Belarusian outfit Dinamo Minsk.
Stevenson pointed out Hearts’ inability to secure a result without Shankland scoring and the Scotland striker only scored his first goal of the campaign last weekend.
The former Jambos star warned his former side and stressed they cannot keep expecting Shankland to bail them out of sticky situations time and time again.
“If Lawrence does not score we find it very very hard [to find a result]”, Stevenson said on the Scottish Football Podcast about the Jambos.
“Now, the good part of that is, yes, he has scored on Saturday.
“But in Europe, that is going to be a very, very difficult game for us.
“And we just cannot rely, same at home, we cannot just rely on one guy to bail us out constantly.”
Shankland has scored only one goal so far this term and Hearts will be looking to create goalscoring opportunities for other players to get some weight off from their star forward.
