Hearts chief chucks caution in the bin as multi-million pathbreaker makes him truly believe in title glory

The Tynecastle CEO has high hopes for the future despite the club sitting rock bottom of the Premiership

Hearts chief Andrew McKinlay believes the Tynecastle tie-in with the analytics firm behind Brighton’s success can turn them into genuine title challengers. The Jambos sit rock bottom of the Premiership after the worst start to a season in their history. But a multi-million pound investment that will see the club benefit from the use of Jamestown Analytics, the data and stats company owned by Tony Bloom’s Starlizard, has McKinlay excited.

Forget the cash injection, as welcome as that will be, McKinlay reckons it’s the keys to the software that could see Hearts finally drive in between Celtic and Rangers. Furthermore he genuinely believes it could fuel a genuine Gorgie push for the Premiership title not too far down the line.

McKinlay has seen the revolutionary effect it’s had on Brighton through smart transfer trading. Ipswich Town used the same tool to help their surge from the third tier of English football back into the Premier League for the first time in 22 years. And the rise of Royale Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgian football since plugging into the system has been one of European football’s success stories.

McKinlay said: “The investment is going to be great, it's going to help, but it's not the exciting bit of this. The exciting bit for me is access to the analytics. If you look at how analytics has been used at other clubs, and how successful it's been at other clubs, you can't help but be excited.

“When I first came into the club, we'd just been demoted. I remember saying I wanted to get us back to being the third force in Scotland. I got abuse because I wasn't showing enough aspiration. I learned quickly. I've never said in an interview that we should be first or second. That's always been on my mind.

“I’ve always struggled to think how you do that from a financial perspective. Unless something goes wrong with one of the other two, that's a different thing. You're constantly looking for something else that can allow you to close that gap because their finances are miles ahead.

“When analytics comes along as an opportunity, a chance to use it properly, we should get a standard of player that allows us to close that gap. And genuinely, hopefully at some point, challenge. Whether it's in second place or maybe in time it would be lovely to be right up there.

“It would be brilliant for Scottish football. Whether it's Hearts or someone else, we're all dying to have more than two teams every year who can win the league. I see this as a genuine opportunity to do that.

“The analytics doesn't just do recruitment. It can be very helpful with opposition analysis. We do a lot of that ourselves already. This adds another layer to these sorts of things.”

McKinlay has never used Bloom’s name, at least publicly, when broaching the subject of the impending investment. But even if the Brighton owner was to seek a minority stake in the club further down the line, McKinlay is adamant there is no chance they would ever link arms with another club.

That would go against everything their majority shareholding fan group, the Foundation of Hearts, stand for. He said: “One of the crucial things is the Foundation. They've been quite clear about their red lines for things that they wouldn't want.

“What we won't do is enter into anything which is a link up with another club or akin to a feeder. Which is why when individuals are talked about it's not helpful because people then naturally think if an individual were linked to other clubs. The one thing I can say categorically is there are no links here to any other football club.”

The immediate investment however will be used for more than just strengthening the playing pool available to the new manager, with the interviews for that position now well underway. The training facilities at the Oriam are another area earmarked for improvement.

McKinlay said: “We do need to look at investment for things like the training ground. Having said that we've actually invested quite heavily in the background over the last year or so. We've got a bistro up there, we've just stitched a pitch, a semi-hybrid pitch up there. That will be exclusively our pitch.

“We are getting better with what we get from the facilities up there as they currently stand. We've got it in quite a good place.”

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