Andrew McKinlay has revealed Heart of Midlothian will use an analytics company in their search for a new manager.

Hearts parted company with Steven Naismith and his assistants Frankie McAvoy and Gordon Forrest on Sunday after the worst start to a season in the club's history.

The chief executive spoke to the club's TV, providing an update on the search for a replacement. While unable to give a timeline, he confirmed the club will use an analytics company as part of the process.

Hearts have been in talks with Tony Bloom over investment which could see his Starlizard and Jamestown Analytics companies play a part in the club's recruitment.

"The timeline is a difficult one because I’d love to be able to bring in a manager tomorrow or as soon as possible," McKinlay said. "I’ll be very upfront and say that as a club, and as long as I’m here, I would never speak to anyone else about the manager’s job until such time that there is no manager in place. You see many examples of other clubs who appear as if their process is 24-hours and suddenly a new manager appears. That’s not the way we work.

"Having said that, and I’ve said this previously, we do always have lists of people that we’re looking at, that we update and refresh on a two or three-monthly basis, and we’ve been doing that recently, as you’d expect us to.

"Where we are now is that we’ve had our own lists and we’re also working with an analytics company. I can’t really say too much about who that company is, there has been a lot of press reporting recently but for commercial confidentiality reasons I can’t go into too much detail, but we are working with an analytics company.

"Now, what does that mean? Does it just mean that they will tell us who we should have as the manager? No, it doesn’t mean that. What it means is that they will be part of the process and they will have some views on some individuals and we will also feed them any individuals we think might be right and any applications we might have, and we’ve had a significant amount in the last 48 hours. In fact, we’ve had a significant amount in the weeks previous to that, such is the nature of football. They’ll all be fed into that analytics and that will give us an idea of a ranking of managers.

"But that ranking is just based on analytics, you then have to take that and look at those individuals; are they within our ability to get them, are they in current roles or not, there are various factors – will they fit into our culture, what style of football will they play, you can go on and on, and the analytics won’t give you all those answers. You have to do a lot of your own work and that’s the same as when it comes to recruiting players through analytics as well. The analytics will be a very important part of the process."

Possible investment

On the topic of Bloom and potential investment, McKinlay admitted it "is quite a difficult one for me to say too much" due to "commercial confidence".

He was, however, able to reveal the importance of the Foundation of Hearts in the discussions and confirm the club won't become a feeder club for another other.

"Until such a time we have a deal with anyone, I can’t actually talk about who it’s with or what it would look like. That would be entirely wrong and I would also be heavily criticised, and rightly so, where I to say anything that jeopardised any potential deal we’re looking at.

"Having said that, I think you’ve also got to remember in the context, in particular, of investment that the owner of the club and the 75% shareholder is the Foundation of Hearts. They have to be taken on any journey around investment, and not just taken on any journey, they have a key part of any decision-making in relation to any deal we subsequently do. Recently, the chairman of the FOH, Gerry Mallon, has been very clear on a number of things that are fundamental to the Foundation and any deal that they would approve.

"The one thing that I would like to be very, very clear on, because it’s not just a Foundation point, it’s a point for the club and the club strategy and I’ve made comments in the past about my views on multi-club ownership, and not being hugely supportive of them; I want to be clear that when I was talking about that, I was talking in the context of feeder clubs. I do not want Scotland to become a feeder league. I, and the Board and FOH’s firm position is that we will not become a feeder club for any club elsewhere. We will not have a formal link with any other football club.

"Anything that we do would be done on the basis of there may be an individual involved, or they may not be, that has involvement with other football clubs but there will be no links between those clubs.

"A thing we’re very conscious of is that if you do have links with other clubs then that could prejudice your ability to play European football and we will never put that in jeopardy. That would just be a ludicrous thing for us to do and we will not do it."

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New deal explanation

McKinlay also explained the reasoning behind giving the management team a contract extension last month.

Naismith, along with Frankie McAvoy, Gordon Forrest and Paul Gallacher, had a one-year option on their two-year deals which the club exercised.

"Steven and I had conversations over the summer around the fact – particularly around his assistants more so than him - that they would be going into the final year of their deals if we didn’t exercise the option, and they would start looking for other jobs. I get that. Any one of us, if we think our job is going to finish at a finite time, would do that.

"He was keen that we didn’t have that instability amongst the coaching team. I looked at the options, we had a discussion as a Board and we agreed to exercise the option to give them the stability that they had asked for.

"I think it’s important, because the inference from many people is that it was such a stupid decision and cost us a lot of money, that without going into absolute detail I can say that the way we structure our contracts, compensation that gets paid either way didn’t change and doesn’t change. What we’ve ended up having to do here is no different than if we had exercised that option or not.