Former Hearts manager Steven Naismith has stoutly defended Kenneth Vargas over his comments while on international duty with Costa Rica.
The 22-year-old claims clubs are monitoring his progress and he would like to leave Tynecastle due to the weakness of the Scottish league.
This provoked fury from Hearts fans which led to the player releasing a statement claiming his comments were taken out of context.
And his former manager Naismith reckons while he's not fully thought through his comments, the player's heart is in the right place in wanting to provide for his family.
He told BBC show Off The Ball: "I think he's been naive, I don't think he's just been taken straight out of context.
Read more
"I think he's done an interview, at times potentially not knowing it's going to get bounced back here. I've played with a lot of players that have gone international and they've come back and they've said all sorts.
"He's a driven young player, he's got a young son, his goal is to get him everything he can. That's to go to the highest level, I think there's no doubt about that.
"Has Kenneth done well enough this season to be saying that? Probably not. But his potential is really big. I think the biggest thing he's lacking at the moment is that last wee bit of finesse in the final third in front of goal.
"So I think there's a bit of naivety but also it has been taken the wrong way."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here