Christophe Berra hopes there are many more appearances for Hearts to follow as he prepares to play his 200th game for the club.

The 33-year-old former Wolves and Ipswich centre-back will reach the milestone at Livingston on Friday.

“I’m obviously very proud of that, especially as I have been away for over eight seasons,” said the Edinburgh-born defender, who is back in action after a long-term hamstring injury.

“I’ve been lucky, apart from that injury there, to be injury-free most of my career and it’s a great honour to represent this club in hopefully more than 200 appearances.

“There’s always highs and lows, some things will stick out in your mind and some things you want to forget about, but it’s all been a learning curve.

“You are always learning and all these past experiences have put me where I am today.

“I started my career here and hopefully I will finish it here. Hopefully I have many years ahead of me.”

Berra suffered his setback in the first game of the Ladbrokes Premiership campaign and his comeback was accelerated by an injury to his replacement, on-loan Burnley defender Jimmy Dunne.

“It’s good to be back,” he said. “Three games in six days, I don’t think that was ever the plan. The Rangers game I was trying to get an hour and managed to play 90 minutes.

“The St Johnstone game, I maybe wasn’t supposed to be playing and I played 90 minutes. And then I played 90 minutes against Motherwell in a tough, physical game. I came through fine.

“There’s still a lot of hard work to be done, I need to increase the strength in my hamstring. I’m not through it yet but it’s great encouragement to get through those three games with no ill effects.”