Steven Naismith was unable to provide an update on Tony Bloom's investment in Heart of Midlothian - but spoke about the impact data is having in all areas of football.

Club officials have been in talks with the Brighton & Hove Albion chairman and owner regarding £10million investment which would see Bloom and his data specialist company Starlizard revolutionise the club's player recruitment.

Ahead of Saturday's Scottish Premiership clash with St Mirren, Naismith admitted he has "more important things to be thinking about" and that further updates on Bloom's investment "will come out and things will be said at the right time by the people at the club that should be having their conversations".

"To be honest, most things at the club I am kept up to date with but I am not in a position to speak on it," Naismith said. "On data in general it is a thing that has been happening in football for the last 10-15 years. It's now at a point where it's not just general output from players, it's in every area of the clubs.

"So I think personally it's something that's only going to get bigger in football. There's areas of the game that it's very early on in, but there's other areas that can be a massive benefit. We use as much at the moment as we can and what we've got the resources for. But I think going forward in every area of every club it's going to be a big part of it.

"But in terms of any deal I'm not really in a position to speak any more about it."

Hearts use data in all areas of the football department. As well as recruitment it is used for players' fitness, the team's style and opposition analysis. 

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Naismith explained that the club are always looking to improve and progress as much as they can. And that means making changes with Graeme Jones coming in as sporting director with the role tweaked from the one Joe Savage fulfilled.

"Probably in the time I've been here, the progression has been at a much quicker rate than infrastructure is ready for and behind the scenes is ready for," he said. "We're making rapid steps.

"In terms of data, we use it at the levels that we've got at our disposal at the moment. We're not at the top end of where it is generally in football. But like I said, I think like everything in football, as it's more mainstream and the resources are becoming easier to access, then I'll get touched on in all of these areas.

"We try as much as we can with the different data packages that we've got at the moment, but there's definitely a lot of room for improvement with the better resources that you get."