It's the 76th minute in the second-leg of Ross County's comfortable Premiership play-off final victory over Raith Rovers. They lead 3-0 on the day in Dingwall and 5-1 on aggregate.

The No.10 is flashed on the substitute's board. Yan Dhanda is being replaced by Staggies boss Don Cowie. It allows the playmaker to receive a standing ovation from the County crowd for his efforts across the past two seasons where he played a pivotal part in ensuring the club kept their Premiership status. Everyone knew where the player was heading: Heart of Midlothian Football Club - a deal that was confirmed on Wednesday afternoon.

A tweet on the day of that play-off final clash caught the eye.

It read: "One of my favourite signings for Ross County. Absolute quality."

Hearts Standard recently caught up with Enda Barron, the author of that tweet, and the man who played a key role in bringing Dhanda to Dingwall as the club's head of recruitment, scouting and analysis.

"He should have never signed for Ross County," was Barron's honest answer as to why Dhanda was one of his favourite signings. "He shouldn’t have come to Ross County because a queue of clubs should have been looking for him.

"Hearts’ benefit is that you get a better player than he probably was two years ago which is a credit to us. We shouldn’t have been in the conversation and that’s the thing I like the most; we signed a player we should never have."

Dhanda had been earmarked for great things early on in his career. Born in Tipton in the West Midlands, his dad and uncle both played in the regional league, and it was playing in his hometown where he was recognised. Trials at West Bromwich Albion, Aston Villa, Birmingham City and Walsall followed. It was the Baggies where he enjoyed it the most. He would then earn himself a trial at Chelsea after winning the under-11 player of the tournament at the club's Search for an Asian Star competition back in 2010. By the time he was 14, he had made the move to Liverpool. 

It was Brendan Rodgers' presence that helped convince Dhanda and his family that Anfield was the best place to develop. Having looked up to David Silva when younger, Philippe Coutinho would become a big influence. Away from the pitch he grew close to Trent Alexander-Arnold. He progressed well with Jurgen Klopp namechecking the playmaker as having impressed in a training camp with the first-team in 2017. 

“I trained with the first team a lot for someone of my age,” he told the Guardian in 2019 after swapping Liverpool for Swansea City. “It was amazing to be on the same pitch as [Steven] Gerrard, [Raheem] Sterling and Coutinho. Coutinho is the best player I’ve ever seen. He’s also one of the nicest. From the first time he saw me, he came over and made me feel welcome. He also followed me on Instagram.”

In the same interview, Dhanda, who is Punjabi on his father's side and one of Britain's highest-profile South Asian footballers, discussed the racism he encountered up to that point in his career. During his time with Swansea and toward the end of his two-year spell at County he was on the end of racist abuse. He once featured in the Football Association's revamped Bringing Opportunities to Communities campaign and has been very open about the abuse. 

Back on the pitch, it was in Wales where Dhanda made a name for himself. His first-team career was just 29 seconds old when, with his first touch of the ball in professional football, he netted the winner as the Swans kicked off their 2018/19 Championship campaign at Sheffield United. Which player would get the assist? Barrie McKay.

Despite his obvious talent, he was limited to just 63 appearances across four seasons and three managers. In his last season, he played just seven times.

It was the summer leading into his final campaign in Wales when Ross County began their pursuit. Barron having remembered being impressed with Dhanda during his time at Bristol Rovers. They played Swansea's under-21 side in England's version of the Challenge Cup.

"He was instrumental that day," Barron remembered. "Watching them on video is one thing but when you see someone like that live... It was then I said, ‘If I ever get the opportunity to sign him, I’ll sign him’.

"Everything you want in a No.10 he is. And everything you want in an attacking midfielder he is. He’s so comfortable on the ball, he glides about the pitch. 

"I knew his contract was coming up and he was getting into that territory, 23, 24 years old when compensation wouldn’t be charged. I got hold of his agent and his agent said, ‘Nah, he’s not going up there’. That was July or August the season before we signed him. I said to his agent that it might be no now but moving forward it could be yes. We kept in touch over the intervening four months.

"The more he didn’t play the more under the radar he was so the bigger clubs don’t see him. I was thinking that is great for Ross County and there is going to be an opportunity here. That January window the agent rang me up and asked, ‘Would you have a look at Yan on loan?."

Dhanda has signed a three-year deal with Hearts.Dhanda has signed a three-year deal with Hearts. (Image: SNS)

The answer was, of course, yes. Barron had to take the proposal to Malky Mackay, the manager at the time, and the club. County were playing with Ross Callachan in an advanced midfield role behind Jordan White with Joseph Hungbo and Regan Charles-Cook on the flanks. 

The "only trouble", however, was the "financial commitment". County couldn't cover the portion of wages Swansea wanted them to. The Swans were pushing for the player to move to DC United, the MLS outfit the club's owners have a connection with. Dhanda's partner was pregnant at the time and didn't want to make such a switch.

Despite the disappointment of not being able to get the deal over the line, unable to convince Swansea that it would be more worthwhile for the player to get minutes in Dingwall rather than sit on the bench or inactive, Barron sprang into action as soon as the January transfer window. With the player now in the final six months of his deal they were able to discuss a permanent move. It included getting the player up to watch the team in action at a "packed" Celtic Park. 

"Once it gets past January 31st it is fair game like it did with Hearts this year," he explained. "You can send a letter to the club saying, 'We are going to approach Yan Dhanda'. I literally badgered his agent for six months. It was every single week. We had this welcome package we would send him every week with his name and face on it.

"We got him up, Malky had a conversation with Yan, I was chatting with the agent. My point to the agent was when you are at County on Sky three or four times a year, Sportscene, you end up selling the whole package to him. This is the bit of Scottish football that does itself a bit of a disservice because everyone thinks in England it is a bit of a backwater league which it isn’t.

"You are on TV, especially at Hearts, you just open yourself to another audience and I would be surprised if Yan doesn’t get more interest because he is now playing in Europe and on a different platform."

After a pursuit that was "a year's work", Dhanda finally arrived at Ross County, signing a two-year deal. When the transfer was completed the work was not over. The focus switched. The club's head of media at the time Dale Pryde-MacDonald explained the role he then played in helping the player settle in at the club. It included helping him build his bed.

"Yan’s arrival raised a lot of eyebrows in terms of getting a player of his quality up to Dingwall," he told Hearts Standard. "When you are at a club like Ross County a lot of the effort has to go into the player care side of it and that was the one thing that Yan probably felt, there was a really strong group of staff around him that would be able to help him settle in and get comfortable in his new surroundings.

"When the effort and conversations go in to try and make that marquee player come to a club it needs to be backed up with something. I think that was the one thing everyone at the club was agreed on regardless of what player came in that there was always a strong level of care given.

"When you get a marquee player like Yan Dhanda coming in you are rubbing your hands. When you strip that out it becomes about the human being. Yan is probably one of the most down-to-earth players I have ever come across where there is no ego, no entitlement. He was very self-sufficient, a big loving family around him. He’s not one of those players who is on the phone every two minutes wanting X, Y and Z.

"I helped him move into his flat. I ended up putting his bed together for him. We played Buckie Thistle away in the League Cup in his first game. Because he was going through to the game I needed to meet the delivery driver in the morning then it was straight through to the game and then straight back after the game to help him get settled. He had his partner who was heavily pregnant at the time driving up from Birmingham. He was contending with a lot."

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Both Dale and Enda spoke of early struggles. He had to bide his time and it even led to a heart-to-heart in the media room at the Global Energy Stadium.

"I remember three, four games into his Ross County career he had a wee bit of a wobble and he phoned me one day," Pryde-MacDonald recalled.  "We met before an away game and it was reminding him of the opportunity in front of him and being that listening ear. That was maybe once in that two-year period where he had any form of frustration. He was new in the building, getting used to a new way of life.

"He was a young guy who had just moved from Swansea up to Dingwall. He’s got a partner who was heavily pregnant, a lot was going on in his life. Sometimes you just need to sit, listen and acknowledge it but equally, there are times when it is a case that you are four weeks into your journey here, you’ve still got another 17 months there.

"It was that wee bit of everything had happened so quickly, it was just him needing to plant his feet on the ground, breathe, and exhale because when you do come up to Ross County you are adapting to completely new surroundings, you are adapting to a completely new way of life. It was a wee bit of him adapting to the new normal and he did that."

On the field, it was an injury to Callachan at Kilmarnock in October of his first season that was a key turning point. From that moment on he became a key player at the club, taking the opportunity and adapting to what was required of him.

Dhanda has signed a three-year deal with Hearts. (Image: SNS)

"You now have a player who played Swansea’s way and because they have a very specific style of play and way of playing you end up having to manipulate the Swansea way to the Ross County way," Barron said.

"We can mix it up, we can go back to front very quickly. I said to Yan, ‘Sometimes you aren’t always going to get the ball between the lines and play in pockets of space’. We talked to him about putting the ball at risk.

"Swansea wanted to keep the ball and find the perfect opportunity but when you are in the final third just put the ball in the box because you have got technique and you have got the awareness to pick up space which he does and he drifts around the pitch, glides past people, has a touch, right foot, left foot. When you are in those areas don’t turn down the opportunity to play forward. If it is on to cross, cross. When you have good feet like Yan you only need half a yard, shift it out of your feet and put it in the box.

"Once he got in the team, he never came back out again."

Not only did Dhanda become a leading figure on the field he became a popular member of the team off of it. He would get the captain's armband under Derek Adams while the outpouring of congratulations and well-done messages following his County exit from team-mates and staff members was telling.

Pryde-MacDonald forged a strong bond with Dhanda while at County. He spoke incredibly highly of Dhanda the person, beyond the footballer, describing him as a "world-class human being". The type who will seamlessly fit into the squad dynamic and environment that has been built at Tynecastle Park.

"The thing with Yan is he has clearly come from a family with extremely good values, he’s been brought up in the right way, his dad is an absolute riot, his dad’s hilarious but honest hard-working family but that ethos and mindset has been put into Yan," he said.

"I know boys who knew Yan at Liverpool and they all speak so highly of him. That’s because he was someone who never thought he was bigger than he was, he never had an ego. It was very much that he was there to do a job and he was a normal human being who had an extraordinary opportunity to become a professional footballer. That’s the way it comes across with him.

"The respect Yan had in the dressing room was more as a person as well as a player. Yan would speak to anybody, he was always a smiling face. He would engage with people in conversation, he’d probably funded half the coffee shops in Inverness the last two years because he was always out for a coffee with somebody or doing something.

"It’s a testament to him and his character that so many people did appreciate him and so many people respect who he is as a person."

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Pryde-MacDonald, now general manager at Greenock Morton, remains close with the player and even helped Dhanda write his departure message.

"It was really important because when Yan came to Ross County it was probably a crossroads in his career," he said. "What Ross County gave him was a platform and an opportunity to re-establish himself and go out and perform every week. You look at it now and it was probably the best decision he has made in his career at that point.

"He is now able to go from Ross County to Hearts, the third best team in the country and fantastic people there, fantastic staff. Nobody begrudges anyone when they become a valuable asset to another football club at a higher level."

That platform afforded to him in the Highlands will now benefit Hearts. But Barron doesn't believe it has to be the high point or the endpoint but another staging post on a career that can go to the highest level.

"There are players you can just tell you are at a different level, the way they move, the way they manipulate the ball, the way they run, the spaces they take up. You are a f***ing good player, we know you are a good player.

"It is just about getting Yan the ball because he is a clever player. He’s as good a player as you’ll see. He’s got something different, he’s not blessed with fantastic pace but he can find space, ride a tackle, ping a free kick into the top corner. He looks like a player who could play higher and that’s the thing that catches people’s eyes. You look like a player who could go anywhere he wants and he could go anywhere wants."

Barron added: "He can play in the Premier League if he really wants to. If his career continues to go forward he will play in the Premier League, of that I am no doubt."

If he does, it means he has been a huge success for Heart of Midlothian Football Club.