Hearts hero urges club to hand an 'exciting' boss a Tynecastle chance as he names types to avoid

Ryan McGowan has named the type he’d like to see in charge | SNS

Hearts hero Ryan McGowan wants to see his ex-club go down the foreign route rather than the Scottish manager merry-go-round.

A member of the Scottish Cup-winning squad in 2012, the defender now at Livingston has been watching on at developments in Gorgie. Steven Naismith has been sacked as head coach after an eighth straight defeat on Saturday, this time a 2-1 loss against St Mirren. They are bottom of the Premiership.

Brighton chairman Tony Bloom is in talks over an investment deal with Hearts, and it’s rumoured the club will work with his analytics company he has used to find current Seagulls boss Fabian Hurzeler. Amid this fresh investment possibly coming into the club, McGowan would like to see Hearts stray outside of Scotland for Naismith’s replacement.

He told Sky Sports: “I would like to see them stay away from the Scottish managers or the managers that have been in and around Scottish football. I’d like to see them take an opportunity on someone foreign, young, exciting, I think the fans want to see exciting football.

“There is a lot of excitement about the possibility of new money coming into the club so if they can get a young, exciting manager who can come in and match that and make this place rocking again, then that is something I’d rather go down rather than some of the faces and names that have been thrown around already. I think something has to happen to change how Scottish football is.

“Historically it’s been Celtic and Rangers so if one of the clubs outside them want to challenge them they need to do something different and something that hasn’t been done recently. The way Brighton do it, they have a structure and it seems to be successful. It will be a lot smaller scale in terms of Hearts with the money they are putting in but putting that into Scottish football is a lot of money.

“So, it’s a huge opportunity for the new manager whoever they do decide to go with that he might have those funds available and should be really exciting for them to not only chase Aberdeen or teams above into third, but to try and get Hearts back into a direction where the fans, board and players are all on the same page.”

On Naismith’s exit, McGowan added: “Last year they did well. But football is a results business and the results haven’t been good enough this season. I think more importantly, the fans have been pretty disappointed in the performances.

“Something seems to be not right at the club, I don’t know what that is in terms of whether it’s the manager, but the way football is at the moment, it does seem to be the manager that takes the fall for that. I think the players need to take a bit of responsibility.”