FRANKIE McAvoy tonight revealed that Rangers playmaker Alex Lowry turned down the chance to move to England to join Hearts on loan in the wake of his side’s 2-0 win over St Johnstone.
The Tynecastle club got their cinch Premiership campaign off to a winning start at McDiarmid Park this afternoon thanks to second-half goals from Yutaro Oda and Lawrence Shankland.
The visitors struggled to break down their hosts, who went in to their opening league game on the back of a 4-0 defeat to Stirling Albion in the League Cup, until Lowry came on.
The 20-year-old had only completed his season-long switch to Hearts on Friday afternoon and had not trained with his new team mates.
READ MORE: St Johnstone 0 Hearts 2: Instant reaction to the burning issues
However, he made a huge difference to their play going forward and started the attack which led to Shankland netting Hearts’ second in injury-time.
McAvoy, who was pleased to see Beni Baningime and Martin Boyle return from lengthy injury lay-offs, was impressed with Lowry’s display and is excited about what he has to offer in the coming months.
"You can see he's got a bit of quality,” he said. “But we knew that. He is coming from a massive club in Rangers. We are delighted he wanted to come here.
“He had a lot of options on the table and chose to come here. He had the chance to go down south. But he felt we play in the right manner and felt he could add something. I think you could see that today.
“We used him in a few positions where he can bring that creativity to try and unlock defences. Sometimes it's difficult when teams sit in and defend, it can be hard to break them down. He has that quality.
"For the second goal he has that intelligence to play a looped pass for Boycie, who unselfishly plays it across for Shanks to finish.
“We know we are getting a good young player, but we need to be mindful not to put him under too much pressure in terms of him being the guy who's got to go and win games all the time. That's not the case. We are a team and it's not about individuals. But he will fit in well.”
READ MORE: VAR, rules of the game & officiating tweaks explained
Asked about the return of Baningime and Boyce, McAvoy said: "It's brilliant, great to see them back on the pitch.
“Sometimes you get wee niggles coming back from bad injuries. Credit to the medical team. They worked really hard to get them ready. Again, that adds some strength in depth to the squad and we will need that going forward.”
He added: "It will take time for us to gel. That's not a cop-out to buy people time. We've brought a new group in, it will take time to gel them in in terms of how we want them to play and also fit them into the group and find the camaraderie between them.
“We are delighted with the impact the subs made. You could see the quality that added. We need strength in depth and we need them being really competitive.
“It's a marathon, not a sprint. You don't win it on the first day, but it was important to get a positive start with three points.”
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