Driver on outer at Hearts

Hearts winger Andrew Driver has almost certainly played his last match for the Scottish Premier League club.

Driver was omitted from the Hearts squad for Saturday’s 4-0 win against Dunfermline Athletic after he confirmed that he no longer wants to play for manager Paulo Sergio.

In the build-up to the match, the winger was questioned about reports that he was poised to put in a transfer request after falling out of favour since the arrival of the Portuguese earlier this season.

He confirmed the stories were true and was asked to leave a team meeting before being replaced in the squad by under-19 captain, Chris Kane.

And, after Hearts won without Driver, Sergio hit out at the player, claiming he was not good enough to be gifted an automatic start.

“I don’t believe that Hearts has any player that makes all the difference. If he plays we win, if he doesn’t we lose. Messi and Ronaldo play in Spain, we don’t have them,” Sergio said.

“My point of view is Andrew Driver is a good player.”

“He hasn’t been fit for a long period. Now he’s OK, I liked what we had last week (against Celtic) and I was thinking of him to help the team for the rest of the season.”

“He works well, he just has to wait his chance to play because for a long period (he was) just training twice a week because of his knee.”

“Yesterday he told me he wants to move in January; for me, not a big deal.”

“But today I read that his agent is saying that I don’t have a good relation(ship) with Driver, which isn’t true, I never had a problem with him.”

“And he was saying, too, that you don’t want to play for Hearts while I’m the manager. That is something that I have to take care of.”

Sergio was reacting to a statement from Driver’s agent which said: “Andrew has been fit. We have now reached the stage where they are not paying him or playing him”.

“They are treating him with utter disrespect.”

“All he wants is to play for the club he has been with since he was 14 but his relationship with Sergio isn’t good.”