Why Hearts chief apologised to fans and B team boss latest

The key takeaway was that the club have already identified one transfer target ahead of the January transfer window. It was also noted that the squad is currently too big and Neil Critchley would like to work with a smaller group.

But what else was there to take away from the 32-minute update on the club's YouTube channel...

Graeme Jones

The club's new sporting director Graeme Jones will officially begin work at Hearts following the international break later this month. He was heavily involved in the appointment of Critchley and that relationship will be allowed to grow stronger once he has moved over from the Scottish FA.

"That was always the agreement with the SFA that he would be allowed to stay with them through the Nations League," McKinlay said.

"Then there's a natural break there for him to leave the SFA and come to us. As I've said many times, the SFA have been really helpful to allow him to actually spend some time working with me, in particular around the appointment of Neil, which was crucially important. That's been great and I'm really looking forward to getting Graeme officially on board at the end of November."

Analytics deal

Hearts fans will be pleased to know the club are close to announcing the analytics partnership which will allow key figures to discuss more specifics around the deal. The club are currently using the analytics, both to recruit the new head coach and with player identification.

"We're almost there with actually finalising a deal in relation to the analytics side of things," McKinlay explained. "We've been using it, as everyone knows, for the manager appointment.

"We will be using it for player identification, both in January but probably more fundamentally come the summer, where there's likely to be a bit of, everyone can see who's out of contract, so there might be a fairly big overhaul come the summer but we're already using it.

"We're enjoying using it and I think it's going to bring great success to the club."

Season targets

McKinlay's chief executive update was filmed before Hearts dropped back to the bottom of the table with the home loss to Kilmarnock.

He revealed he is "not changing our ambition to be third" despite, at the time of recording, the 19-point gap to Aberdeen. That gap is now 22. McKinlay did admit that it is "not going to be easy" and that sights should be set on more achievable elements in the short term.

"I think the first thing, though, we need to do it in bite-sized chunks, and we're not that far away from the top six, bizarrely," he said. "Other than Aberdeen, it's fairly compact. So I think if we can pick up a few wins, we can start climbing, get into the top six, and then let's see where we are."

The club budget for reaching both cup semi-finals.

Euro hope

McKinlay also revealed the club had budgeted for two wins in Europe. Something that has been achieved already with victories over Dinamo Minsk and Omonia Nicosia.

There is hope now that Hearts will progress to the knockout stage.

"Anything now will be helpful, because we didn't budget for it," McKinlay said. "We also took the view that looking at the simulations previously, it's six or seven points should definitely be enough to get us into the play-off round. So we're on the verge of that already, which is just brilliant, but we're not complacent, and I don't want us to rely on the final game against Petrocub, which everyone's still saying, well, that's a definite.

"I don't see any reason why we can't do anything in all of the games. I think we've got an opportunity, and that would be great. So let's now aim to see if we're higher up that play-off bit in the middle, or even make that top eight, which is where we're sitting at the moment, which would take you straight to the last 16."

B team boss

The club are currently looking at the B team head coach position after Liam Fox became part of Neil Critchley's first-team staff. Angus Beith has been taking the B team while under-18s coach David McNeil filled in on Tuesday against Celtic with Beith on a course.

"The B team is still hugely important to us so we'll take our time, but we'll make sure we get the right people for that," McKinlay confirmed. "Again, it's about, as we've done, progression, and we like to develop our own coaches and bring them through. So we're working on that at the moment, and we'll hopefully have something to confirm very soon on that."

Fan apology

McKinlay addressed comments made during Neil Critchley's unveiling where he said:

"From my perspective, we're fan-owned and the fans have a privileged position in that they have two positions on our board."

He apologised to fans for his wording and explained what he meant:

"First of all is a sincere apology, and it was around something I said in Neil's interview when he came to the first interview I did with Neil. Now, that was, I'll be honest, for both Neil and I, that's one of the most stressful interviews you do with a new manager, especially given some of the vibe around the appointment and some of the questions that were coming in.

"I was asked about fan sentiment, and I was very clumsy in my response in my use of one word, which was privileged I did intend to use that word, but what I was trying to say was that the club are incredibly privileged in that we have FOH and that we have two representatives of FOH who sit on the board. It's not a privilege for the fans to have that.

"It's an entitlement, and rightly so, that FOH has two board members on the main board, and they contribute hugely to the main board. So I just wanted to get that very clear, that the privilege sits with the club, that we have those two board members who are part of our decision-making and make sure that the fan voice is right at the heart of the core strategic decision-making of the club."