Hearts squad has formed instant bond '“ head coach Ian Cathro

The Tynecastle head coach is pleased by the togetherness fostered in the dressing-room, which has helped improve results over the last three games.

Andraz Struna, Tasos Avlonitis, Aaron Hughes, Lennard Sowah, Malaury Martin, Alex Tziolis, Dylan Bikey, Choulay and Esmael Goncalves were all brought in by Cathro last month.

They contributed to a 4-1 win over Rangers and a 3-0 victory at Motherwell before Sunday’s goalless draw with Hibs in the Scottish Cup. Cathro expressed his delight at the quick progress made following his January overhaul. Two wins and a draw and just one goal conceded give him plenty encouragement ahead of this week’s league visit of Inverness.

“There is progress in all of those things. We can see – even in the course of the last week – that the squad has come together and is strong,” he said. “We deal with some frustrations after Sunday but we directly look forward to the next game.

“We were strong on Sunday, we were never uncomfortable in the game. Some games, you have to defend well with good discipline. You need to keep doing the small details well to keep the structure strong. We did that well. I don’t think there was any sense of us being shaky. We just couldn’t quite dominate play in a way to generate enough chances for ourselves.”