In recent weeks, Hearts Standard has provided an overview of the Heart of Midlothian squad heading into pre-season and the 2024/25 campaign. We have analysed the status of the current squad as well as the areas in which Steven Naismith may look to strengthen this summer.

Now we hand it over to Tom Irving, our resident analyst who has worked with clubs on scouting and data, to provide an overview of what preparation for recruiting involves and to suggest possible transfer options in five key positions.

I’m going to take you on a journey through the life of a modern-day football scout. It’s February, and even though you’ve just finished a transfer window you’re already tasked with preparing for the summer window.

Now, this prep has been going on for months, if not years.

There is a player at your club who is leaving this summer having run down his contract and he needs to be replaced. Then there is another player who is expected to be the centre of a big offer and will definitely need to be replaced. And replaced by someone of quality. In addition, the head coach has made the head of recruitment aware that he wants to improve a specific position with the belief there is a need to improve in that area. These are just some of the scenarios that go on behind the scenes at a professional football club.

Most clubs will have huge databases of players that have been identified in various ways. Some will be players in the league who the manager knows well but has asked for reports on. Some will have been recommended by trusted sources. Some will have been identified through data analysis. Some will even be identified in pretty random ways, like a scout scrolling through Twitter and seeing a brilliant solo goal, before spending the next two hours finding out everything he can about the player out of sheer curiosity and excitement, eager to uncover a hidden gem and potentially introduce a future star to the higher-ups.

Read more

Some of these individuals will have brief reports written based on a single game, but a lot of the players in this database will have been watched several times. These players will be sorted by ranking and identification, separating them into different styles and different categories.

One might be rated 8/10 as a No.9 in the 'young player in a similar league' category. Another may be rated as 7/10 as a ball-winning central defender in the 'experienced professional' category.

Now, it does get vastly more detailed than that but we’ll leave it there for now.

So, we have our list of players. The manager makes the recruitment department aware of the his needs. In turn, the scouts will look at the players that match his needs within the database and produce more thorough reports, as well as potentially identifying other players from outwith the database.

The scouting team will provide the manager with five to 10 dossiers on players for each position. These dossiers, both written and video reports, will feature biographical data, important stats, data analysis comparing the players to others in their respective leagues and to the team's current players. The manager will digest these reports, and either ask for full games to watch or, depending on the relationship with the recruitment team, the manager may just trust their opinions and make decisions based on the dossiers.

The next step is up to the sporting director to bring in the manager's preferred recruits. This isn’t always easy and clubs might end up with players a few steps removed from their first choices but they’ll still have been suggested and approved by the recruitment and management team.

Now that you know how recruitment works in a very basic form, we are going to look at one of these steps as we identify five players through the use of data as if we are part of Will Lancefield’s recruitment team at Hearts.

Combative midfielder

Hearts have feistiness and fire in the middle already but lack a bit of height. In European competition, a bit of size and physical presence may be invaluable depending on the type of team we come up against.

I’m looking for someone like Peter Haring or potentially what was expected from Orestis Kiomourtzoglou. Essentially, a tall central midfielder who can get around the pitch.

I’ve selected several leagues that I believe Hearts can afford to recruit players from and that in some way would suit the Scottish league in style. I’ve filtered by specific metrics that are non-negotiable to the type of player the club would be after and went through footage and data behind several players who caught my eye, something that I’ll do for all the players.

Who has come out on top? Someone from a league the club are very familiar with: League 1in England. And a familiar team: Peterborough United.

Peterborough United's Hector KyprianouPeterborough United's Hector Kyprianou (Image: Getty)

Let me introduce 23-year-old Hector Kyprianou. The 1.89m Cypriot international has played 180 games in his short career, including 54 this past season. For starters, that’s a player who should be able to deal with the large volume of games that will come next season. He’s been excellent off the ball, getting involved in a high number of duels and aerial duels, both with a high win percentage. On the ball, he’s an impressive passer, both deeper on the pitch and further forward.

Impressively for more of a defensive midfielder, he manages to be in the 85th percentile for touches in the box. This, on top of his shooting stats, proves that he gets around the pitch efficiently.

Striker

The club will be preparing for the worst-case scenario. Lawrence Shankland's exit. The club's star striker won just about every Player of the Year award there was to win and is clearly the best striker in the league.

Even though there haven’t been any offers, it is hard to envisage a summer without any interest. Searching for a proven goal scorer is hard. Goal contributions are the easiest metric to search for, so finding a hidden gem is pretty much impossible. After searching the world for something different, I found two players who tickled my fancy.

Firstly, I added 25-year-old Marko Regza to my shortlist. His goalscoring in Latvia for Riga FC is impressive. Twelve goals and three assists in the 16 league games in the 2024 league, as well as six appearances and a goal in Conference League qualifiers. This leaves him on 33 goals and six assists in 58 appearances for the capital club which has helped him break into the national team.

However, I feel the risk is too great. Even though there have been strikers in recent years who have had good moves on the back of performances in Latvia, like Andrej Ilic who moved from RFS to Vålerenga for €1.6m and then to Lille for €3.75m, Hearts perhaps require someone who is playing in a better league.

Daniel ParaschivDaniel Paraschiv (Image: Getty)

That’s when I modified my parameters and noticed a player in Romania. Daniel Paraschiv’s stats don’t look fantastic on paper, but the once-capped Romanian international managed 11 goals and four assists for the eighth-placed FC Hermannstadt, contributing just under a third of his team's goals for the season.

With a goal conversion rate in the 72nd percentile, having the right creators around him could lead him to thrive. He’d get far more chances in a successful Hearts side than he has had this season and should be able to add more goals to his game. Could a successful period in Scotland get him back in the national team setup?

Winger/wide forward

My favourite type of player is an exciting winger. I think the club have two that fit the description, Yutaro Oda and Alan Forrest, but I think Hearts could look to add one more with something a little bit different in terms of his attributes.

The club would likely be looking for someone who contributes goals, creates lots of chances and is exciting to watch. For this, we go to South Korea to look at Lee Seung-Woo who has been linked with Hearts in the past.

Lee Seung-WooLee Seung-Woo (Image: Getty)

Seung-Woo has played for numerous clubs in Europe including Hellas Verona, Sint-Truiden, Portimonense and Barcelona where he earned the nickname of 'Korean Messi'. Now, he hasn’t exactly lived up to his name, but that’s not a bad thing for Hearts at least. A player with obvious quality, who seems to have reignited his career and is out of contract at the end of the year.

The 26-year-old can play across a front three and on the wing so would fit in well into Steven Naismith's systems. He’s played a lot as a central forward and could be used in a similar manner to Kenneth Vargas.

He’s the best goal-scoring winger in Korea this season which has contributed to his record of 32 goals and eight assists in three seasons for Suwon, with a good xG as well this season. He has one of the best goal conversion rates. While he may shoot a lot,he does so with accuracy. In addition, he provides plenty of assists and has posted a good xA figure (expected assists). His passing ability is brilliant across the board, with a plethora of green on the graph.

Left-back

Hearts will also likely be planning for another scenario where a key player departs. This time Alex Cochrane. He has impressed for a couple of years and if the club were thinking about cashing in on him this is the summer to do so.

Stephen Kingsley is now more of a centre-back than left-back and even though Kye Rowles can play on the left it may not be wise to remove them from one of the strongest central defences in the Premiership. Instead, in my opinion, find an out-and-out left-back that can play in a back four or as a wing-back and compete with James Penrice.

Hearts perhaps need more experience but that doesn’t mean a player in their thirties. I will look for a 22-28-year-old who’s played a significant number of games at a good level. For this, we take a trip to Africa for the first time.

Mohamed Ben HamidaMohamed Ben Hamida (Image: Getty)

Mohamed Ben Hamida has played at a high level for a long time now. Most football fans in Scotland are probably not aware of the Tunisian Ligue Professionnelle 1, but it’s one of the best African leagues, full of quality players.

Esperance Tunis are one of the highest-ranked African clubs, regularly in the top five for African club coefficients. In his time at the club, Ben Hamida has made the African Champions League quarter-final four times, semi-final three times and this season lost the two-legged final by one goal, featuring in the competition an impressive 41 times. This experience in a continental competition could be ideal for Hearts ventures in Europe. He’s been capped six times for the nation that’s two places below Scotland in the world coefficients.

Going by his data he looks excellent. There’s a green majority across the graph, with Mohamed proving effective in defensive, on-the-ball, and off-the-ball areas. He’s a solid full-back, who if willing to give playing in Europe a chance, could go on to have a good career in Scotland.

Right-back

Now I was tasked with finding a right-back for Hearts Standard a week prior to the news breaking about Gerald Taylor and his likely switch to Tynecastle Park. But it is a position that may need two options with Naismith keen to move between playing with a full-back and a wing-back depending on the opposition and game situation.

For this, we look to Switzerland. Let me introduce twice-capped Jhon Espinoza. The Ecuadorian spent some time in the Independiente del Valle youth system, one of the best youth systems in South America.

Across his career, he’s spent time in the top division in Ecuador, potentially the best league in South America outside of Brazil and Argentina. During this time, he played a couple of games in the Copa Sudamerica, the South American version of the Europa League. Since then, he’s played in MLS and most recently Switzerland with Lugano, where he’s played eight games between the Europa League qualifiers and the Conference League group stages.

His stats aren’t incredible, but that doesn’t worry me for two reasons. Firstly, the quality of the Swiss league is higher than the Scottish Premiership. They may not have a couple of huge clubs like Rangers and Celtic, but they have a higher average level across the league.

Secondly, I think the stats don’t show some of his best qualities. He’s a big, strong, fast and athletic full-back, with an excellent work rate. He’s a Scottish winger's worst nightmare, and I think he’d slot in perfectly to the Scottish game and be a huge asset in Europe.