Hearts chief Andrew McKinlay apologises unreservedly and admits: 'Ridicule me now'

Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay admitted supporters are entitled to ridicule him after the club’s failure to reach the Premiership’s top six. Last week’s goalless draw at Motherwell left the Edinburgh club in the bottom half of the split as supporters angrily reacted to another disappointment this season.

Hearts must overcome that disappointment on Saturday when they meet Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden Park. McKinlay previously declared his confidence that the club would finish in the Premiership’s top half but admitted he is devastated by the outcome. “I think, like everyone else, I'm absolutely gutted by it. There's no way to sugarcoat it and I think it's really important that I apologise to to the fans,” he said in an interview on Hearts TV.

“It's well below their expectations and it's well below our expectations as a club to be in the bottom six. We all know we had a dreadful start to the season but we we all believed that we'd picked up and it looked like we were going to make it into the top six - and then we could look at Europe after that.

“I think I was ridiculed by some for saying I was confident that we would make the top six and, okay, they could just ridicule me now if if they feel that's appropriate. I was confident and, two games out, we had it clearly in our hands. After the results for St Mirren and Motherwell [in the penultimate pre-split games], I think we were all really confident that we would make the top six.

“I don't think you'd find many people that weren't, but we didn't so there's no point in hiding behind that. As chief exec, I take my share of the responsibility for that. We have to knuckle down now and and and make sure that we don't have a repeat of that in the future.

“I apologise unreservedly for where we find ourselves. As I said, it's not acceptable from our perspective as a club but we go into a big game on Saturday, so again thank you for the huge amount of support that we're going to have. Let’s get behind the team and let's actually make this potentially a season that will be one that we do remember favourably - and we maybe forget about the league but focus on doing well in the cup. So, thank you to the fans and let's keep the faith.”

McKinlay elaborated on reasons why Hearts didn’t manage to achieve a top-six position after sacking Steven Naismith last autumn and replacing him with Neil Critchley. “It's hard to put your finger on it but I think one of the big things is there's been a real frustration - I think Neil's used that term - around our inability to take our chances,” said McKinlay.

“What I would say is that, since the turn of the year, defensively we've generally looked okay. We've got a new centre-back partnership that's come in and I think hit the ground running, but further forward we just don't seem to have what we had earlier in the season. We're not creating as many chances and, where we have created chances, we've just not been taking those chances.

“You look at a number of games, going back to the Rangers game where we should have won that game. Dundee United - before the sending off we had several chances and we could have been three up. But there are ifs and buts and we can't dwell on that. We need to take those chances. Sport has fine margins but we shouldn't find ourselves on the wrong end of fine margins.

“It was the same in Europe. We shouldn't have found ourselves in a situation where it went right down to those last five minutes. At the weekend, we shouldn't have found ourselves in a situation where it went right down to those last five minutes. We need to really get a mentality into the team as well that they get themselves up for these big games, and obviously we've got no bigger game than the one coming up at the weekend. That's a huge opportunity for the team to to prove their doubters wrong and I sincerely hope that they they can do that.”

Transfer window cash and Premiership ambitions at Tynecastle

Regarding summer transfer plans and budgets, McKinlay insisted that not making the top six does not impact Hearts’ recruitment. “Yeah, I'm comfortable. I know we'll come on to talk about signings but we've already made our plans for the summer and what happened at the weekend shouldn't change that at all,” he said.

“We have plans in place around monies and making sure we've got appropriate monies to do what we want to do - and to do what we need to do to fully utilise the tools that we now have available to us to bring in players that will take us to where we believe we should be as a club. But we don't have a god-given right to that. We just need to make sure we do everything we can so that we don't have a repeat of this season from a league perspective.

“I think the semi-final is huge and I think it gives us an opportunity to thank the fans. The fans again have come out in huge numbers, we're well over 20,000. We will have the majority of the fans on Saturday which is again just thank you to the fans - testament to them that during what's been a difficult time they've still come, stood up to it and will be there in their numbers.

“I know they'll get behind the team and that's what the team need. I know it will be difficult for the fans and they'll feel angry. Some of them are annoyed at where we are but let's let's give the team our backing on Saturday. That could then at least take us to a Scottish Cup final where we would have an opportunity to actually finish the season in style.

“The last five games from a league perspective, the business is not done yet. We have to make sure that we don't allow ourselves to get dragged back into anything down below us. The fixtures are out so we've got an opportunity to hopefully put things to bed fairly quickly after the the split.

“I think we have to, obviously, make sure we finish seventh and that's the best we can do now. We should always be aiming for the best we can do, so let's give it our best till the end of the season, see if we can go on a decent run and finish the season with a bit of positivity.”

Expanding on the subject of player signings, McKinlay told Hearts supporters to expect ‘significant change’. “Firstly, again, thank you to the fans for stepping up to the mark and I fully expect us to go on and sell out our season tickets - which is just testament to to how great our fans are after what has been a difficult season,” he said.

“The signings: Let's go back to January first. We brought in five Jamestown players in January and, while some of them have had difficult games and good games, I think probably most people would look at those five. One hasn't really had an opportunity but certainly the other four who have had opportunities, I would certainly say that they have improved the team.

“They are good players and I think it hopefully shows fans the sort of players that we can bring in through the Jamestown model. Christian [Borchgrevink] is someone that we are very excited about. He is captain of his club [Valerenga] at the moment and that speaks volumes. I think it's probably fair to say we need more leaders in the team.

“We need people that will speak up and we'll make sure that we get the best out of the rest of the team. I think Christian will bring that, so we're very excited about it. I know there's been a bit made recently about how he's currently injured. We're well aware of that. We've done a medical, we know what the injury is and we fully expect him to be ready for a full pre-season and back for us at the beginning of the season.

“We've got another one actually which is almost there to announce as well, and we've got another few irons in the fire. We're well aware that we do need to make some significant changes. There are obviously people leaving the club at the end of the season and there are some that will come to the end of their contracts, others that may end up leaving as well. Partly, that will dictate how many we then bring in - but yeah, I would expect some significant change.”

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