Hearts have announced that teenager James Wilson has agreed a two-year contract at Tynecastle, with the option of a further year.
The Jambos have fended off significant interest from Celtic and Rangers and clubs from down south to retain the services of the talented centre-forward.
A prolific marksman at academy level, Wilson is a talented member of the Hearts youth team - helping the U18s reach the Scottish Youth Cup final in 2022 as well as captaining Scotland U16s at the Victory Shield.
Despite visiting facilities at a number of English clubs, Wilson has explained why he decided to extend his stay with Hearts.
He said: “I’m delighted. I’ve been here since I was nine and come through all the way to this point. I just want to kick on now and go even further.
“I’ve worked with the manager for a while now and know a lot of the coaches. You can see where the pathway is going with this club and it’s a great thing to see. As a young player, that’s what you want.
“You never come in as one of the best players but you work hard every day and try and become the best you can with hard work.”
Sporting Director Joe Savage added: “We’re absolutely delighted. It’s been a long process because James attracted a lot of interest due to his talent, and that was something we were comfortable with.
"It’s been well-documented that bigger clubs have been courting him but we knew we would put something together that would want to make him commit his future to us.
“He attracted interest and rightly so because his performances for Hearts and Scotland have been excellent. Teams are always going to take notice of that, but he’s chosen Hearts as his destination. We as a club will give him everything he needs to try and get into the first team and develop.
“We believe James is currently the best striker in his age group and the sky’s the limit for him. There’s so much to like about how he plays. He’s only going to get bigger, stronger and quicker.
“We have faith in the pathway and development of our players and James has echoed that belief by signing his contract. We think we’re on to something special here in regard to all the plans that have been put in place at the academy and we’re really excited about it.
"We hope that it showcases to other young players and their parents that this is the place to be and we can hopefully develop players that get into Hearts’ first team and eventually become Hearts legends and Scotland internationals.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel