Andrew McKinlay raised a few eyebrows recently when he discussed the potential impact Heart of Midlothian's analytics partnership could have - namely closing the gap to the Old Firm.

The chief executive noted the need to find "something else that can allow you to close that gap because their finances are miles ahead".

The correct use of analytics could be that "something else". The message, however, didn't quite land due to the position the team find themselves in, bottom of the Scottish Premiership.

New Hearts head coach Neil Critchley, certainly in the short-term, won't be judged on anything other than helping steer the team up the table.

The 45-year-old, however, views closing the gap to the Old Firm as a challenge but agrees that "a different type of thinking" can give hope to that particular ambition.

"It's always something to whet your appetite," he said of coming up against the Old Firm. "Everyone knows the top two are the dominant, aren't they? They have been for a number of years. But at some point, why can't that gap be bridged? It's not insurmountable.

"To do that, though, you have to think differently first. So maybe this is a different type of appointment.

"I think that shows you maybe the direction the club wants to go into. With a different type of thinking and what we might be able to achieve in terms of recruitment, etc, then who knows what might happen in the future?."

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One of the key factors for Critchley coming into the club was the willingness and comfort of working not only alongside a sporting director, in this case, Graeme Jones but also working within an environment that will lean heavily on analytics.

He has had experience of it at previous clubs.

For example, at Liverpool Ian Graham, who has the analytics company Ludonautics, was the club's director of research until last year. Data "filtered into the academy". 

"Again, we used it at Blackpool, not in the volume or the resource of what is being used now but data was always part of our process in terms of preparation for games, post-match, and recruitment," he said. 

"We signed some players ourselves off recruitment. I shouldn't mention him because he's playing at Hibs now, but Marvin Ekpiteta was one of them."