Coach vacancy at Hearts as the club's football department undergoes changes

Two Riccarton roles remain vacant at the moment.

Hearts are seeking to fill a key coaching vacancy following the departure of their academy coaching development manager John McLaughlan. He held an overseeing role monitoring coaches at Riccarton up to under-18 level but has now left the position.

The Edinburgh club need a replacement who can work closely with players and staff at different levels within their academy. McLaughlan arrived two years ago after leaving Celtic and brought a wealth of experience to the position as one of the most astute and reputable youth coaches in Scotland.

He has left for pastures new, creating one of two voids which Hearts have yet to fill since the end of the season. They must also recruit a new youth academy director following Frankie McAvoy’s promotion to head coach at first-team level. The Evening News revealed last month that talks were taking place with the former Tynecastle defender Andy Webster about the academy director’s job, but those have not reached a conclusion as yet.

It might be down to the new academy director to determine who should replace McLaughlan and exactly what remit should be attached to that role. Therefore, that more senior appointment may need to come first before anything else.

The changes within the Riccarton academy will provide a freshness for the 2023/24 campaign as Hearts look to nurture another batch of young players. They gave contract extensions to 17 academy graduates towards the end of last season, and some of them have featured with the first team during the early weeks of the pre-season programme.