Andrew McKinlay was "delighted" to introduce new Heart of Midlothian head coach Neil Critchley.

The Hearts chief executive sat alongside the Englishman as they spoke to the media following his unveiling.

McKinlay discussed the club's process of hiring Critchley, what attracted the club to him, and the use of analytics.

Read or watch everything the Hearts chief said:

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I am delighted to confirm Neil Critchley as our new men's head coach as you will all now by now from what I've been saying over the last couple of weeks this has been a new process for the club, complementing what you would call traditional recruitment methods, we've also been working with a data-led approach, and those analytics have helped inform our decision making and this approach culminates in this announcement of Neil. I'd also like to mention Graeme Jones, our incoming sporting director, who's been involved throughout the process with myself. And I'd like to thank again the Scottish FA for allowing him to do that for his assistance. Neil didn't only come out very strongly in the analytics, but based on the recruitment process, our interview, and after speaking to those who have worked with him, we are very confident in his ability to provide all the skills and experience needed to succeed as our head coach. And I for one, at a personal level, am very much looking forward to working with Neil in this really exciting new chapter for the club.

 Can I ask you about the process and why Neil? Or was he the number one choice, first of all?

In relation to that, there's been a lot of speculation about that. I'm not going to go into the full mechanics of a process, disrespectful to Neil, disrespectful to others. The reality of any modern recruitment process is that you run concurrent discussions with agents. That happens throughout the process, to get a full picture of expectations and fit, but Neil was the preferred candidate from an analytics perspective. Also, when we spoke to him, it was very clear to us that he was the right person to work with us, to work with Graeme, to work with the analytics. It would be strange at the start of a strategic partnership if we didn't go into it fully and wholeheartedly. That's where we got to with Neil.

Timescale as to when Neil was offered the job?

Yeah, we spoke to Neil at the back end of last week and things happened at the back end of last week and over the weekend.

Was there anybody else ahead of Neil? 

We didn't negotiate with anyone else. There was a lot of talk last week. There was a lot of talk over the last two weeks. I have had every name thrown at me over the last two weeks. Neil was the only person that we negotiated with.

The fans' reaction so far doesn't appear to be so positive. How do you cope with that, particularly given that the fans and the foundation of Hearts are the owners of the club? 

From my perspective, we're fan-owned and the fans have a privileged position in that they have two positions on our board. Therefore, they're fully involved in the process of appointing Neil. That's something that's fairly unique to most clubs. You talk about this negativity, I'm actually quite encouraged by quite a lot of what I've been hearing and reading today since we made the announcement. I think that our fans, in fact I know our fans, will get behind Neil and will wish him all the best. I know on Saturday they'll get behind him. We all want to come together as one and I'm very, very positive. The fans, I think, will be too.

How did you and the board find the analytical side of things?

First and foremost, I found it really helpful because you start off with a lot of people who are interested in a job like this and it just helps to weed some of that out. Because we are about to enter into a really exciting time for the club on the analytics piece, it would have been ridiculous for us not to have used it as part of this and we did. What though is really important is that the analytics only guides us. To me, a big thing is then about how myself and actually in particular Graeme, because Graeme and Neil will be working really closely together. It was also crucial for us that anyone we spoke to was happy to work within a sporting director model. There's been a lot of talk about a lot of people in football, some in this country, some elsewhere, who it's well known don't work within sporting director models. That is our model and we're not going to change that model for anyone. To me, yes, the analytics were important. The fit though, the human piece and Neil in the conversations, and there was more than one interview, but in the conversations and discussions I've been involved with Neil, I am very excited about working with him going forward.

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What were the key attributes that would have been fed through the analytics that led to Neil coming out?

The main thing the analytics does is it looks at managers who have improved the players they've worked with. That's its main focus, they have a track record of where they've worked with players, they have improved them. The great thing about that is it doesn't purely look at only people that have won. People might win something or might do something because they've got better players, for example, or they might have a better environment to work in. The analytics very much, and that's what we want, is someone that will improve players. I have no doubt Neil will absolutely bring the best out in our players. I'm confident, and I've said it previously, that we have a good squad of players, but they need the right person to direct them, and I think Neil will be that person.

On the human aspect of it, impressed with Neil?

Hugely, and the other thing is we did speak to other people, we've spoken to players who have worked with Neil before. We have spoken to certain players and they have, without fail, been 100% about how they enjoyed working with Neil and how good a person he is to work with and how good he is at getting the best out of players and succeeding with them. The other thing is, Neil's worked at Liverpool, he's worked with people at Jurgen Klopp, he's worked with some really, really impressive people. I can't imagine these are people that suffer fools gladly, so I think in many ways we are lucky that we have Neil here and I'm genuinely delighted that we have him here.

Could you give us a timeline of how the managerial process went and how many times you spoke to Neil and whether he applied or how it all came about?

I think Neil did apply for the role, I think he was very keen to come to the role. He also then matched up with so many people and I'd have to go back but I do know that Neil did apply. The analytics obviously then became part of that. Then both Graham and I spoke to Neil on a couple of occasions. Then Graham had further conversations with Neil, so there were several conversations. There also was a conversation that had other members of the boards were involved in. So numerous conversations which then took us to over the weekend, the back end of last weekend, over the weekend. Very quickly, we got to a deal quite quickly and then we just had to obviously make sure we put the legal niceties to bed. I think I signed the contract late last night electronically, so it's all gone very smoothly and I'm delighted with the process and delighted with where we've ended up with it.

I know you talked about player development as part of the analytics - was there any other specifics behind the curtain as to what kind of data you do look at and what the analytics do look at?

The black box of that algorithm. The big thing for us about that is we have seen what is done at other clubs, both in player recruitment and in manager recruitment. Therefore, we are absolutely bought into that as something that has proven its success and we believe will prove its success here.