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Long-term injury victim Christos Karipidis is nearing a return to action after recovering well from his knee surgery.

The Greek defender is ahead of schedule with his recovery and assistant head coach Stephen Frail today admitted he was surprised to see the player participate in a practice match at the football academy this week.

"Christos has been working hard on his rehab and is back in full training," he told Hearts News Today. "Having said that, I was surprised to see his name down for a practice game we had this week at the academy.

"He coped well, though, and with a few more matches under his belt he won't be far away from consideration for the first team again. Match fitness is the key.

"That will be good as we want a strong second half of the season and we will need our best players in order to achieve that."

Stephen, meanwhile, knows Hearts will have to be at the top of their game to repel an in-form Inverness Caley Thistle side when they visit Tynecastle tomorrow.

Craig Brewster's side will arrive in Gorgie fresh from their stunning 3-2 comeback win over Celtic and Stephen said: "They are on a great run at the moment and will come here wanting to continue that run.

"It is our job to make sure that doesn't happen. And if we can reproduce the kind of performance we showed in the second half at Ibrox last week, I am confident we can get the result we need.

"We have an important run of games coming up and it's vital we take as many points as possible from them, starting tomorrow."

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