Hearts will have to replace not only Lawrence Shankland’s goals but also his influence on the dressing.

The striker joined Premiership rivals Rangers on a pre-contract and will officially link up with his new club once the transfer window opens.

The 30-year-old scored 20 goals in 34 appearances across all competitions for Derek McInnes’ side but that’s not the only metric Hearts will assess when looking for a replacment.

“It’s a huge blow, if you were looking to the squad and the one player that you don’t want to lose, it’s Shankland,” Joel Sked of the Hearts Standard told the BBC’s Scottish Football Podcast.

“You’re not trying to replace a 20-goal-a-season striker, you’re having to replace a leader in the dressing room, that gets underplayed a bit, just how influential he is within the squad.

“You’re also having to replace a talismanic figure, a brilliant link striker. Unless you watch him every week, I don’t think you get an appreciation of just how intelligent he is.

“His vision is brilliant, his awareness, his technique is excellent. I can understand the anger amongst the Hearts fans.

“The reception he’ll get when he comes back to Tynecastle will be spicy, just with the manner of the exit. That’s the big thing. A lot of fans are understandably irate around the manner and timing of it.

“A lot of fans feel duped about his contract situation, it was a three-year contract, but it wasn’t publicised around the break clause, very few people knew about it, and he’s obviously taken that, and it’s just a really difficult one for fans to stomach.”