Hearts reveal details of their development plan and the need for change after decision on five players

Hearts plan to continue this season’s Lowland League experiment by entering a B team in the division again next year. Coaching staff feel the project has been a worthwhile development platform for players emerging from their youth academy.

Five of the club’s B team squad were told earlier this month that their contracts would not be extended beyond the summer, and coach Steven Naismith today explained reasons behind those decisions. Hearts hope to promote some promising under-18 players into next season’s B team squad for the Lowland League. Under-16 standouts will then promote to the under-18s to accelerate their progress.

Naismith is vocal on the fact that the Riccarton youth development process must improve due to the lack of players reaching senior level. Midfielders Connor Smith (21) and Finlay Pollock (18) plus forward Euan Henderson have all been peripheral first-team figures without becoming regulars. Naismith isn’t satisfied at his club producing merely fringe men.

That is ultimately why midfielders Scott McGill and Aidan Denholm, plus defenders Cammy Logan, Arron Darge and Leo Watson were told several weeks ago that they won't be offered new deals.

“Fast-forward three years. If we still have a B-team structure and everything is in place, that is what will happen. You get to Christmas and some guys you don’t think are going to be good enough,” said Naismith. “The younger ones have had wee tastes of the B team over that first six months of the season whilst still playing in the Under-18s. So they understand it. Of them, the ones you have high hopes for should be chapping your door and saying: ‘I want to be a starter for the B team.’

“For the older ones, the worst thing you can do is wait until the end of the season and say: ‘Right boys, you’re not getting a contract.’ Then they need to wait to July or August before there's any hope of a new club. The youth academy only works if things happen the other way and they are told early. There’s no point in having one if you aren’t going to do that.

“So these guys can go and try to forge a career for themselves at whatever level. Some will drop down and go back up in a few years’ time. Everybody else in our structure is bumped up, so younger kids get exposure in the Lowland League. Everybody learns and different speeds. Predominantly in Scotland, kids are playing first-team football at 17, 18, 19. We need to give them as much info and exposure at that age to give them the best chance.

“It hasn’t worked at Hearts for the last five or six years doing what they have been doing, so it needs to change. There needs to be a process to give them more exposure. Eighty per cent of whether a kid makes it or not is down to the player: Attitude, how he learns and how much he wants it. We need to give him as much information as possible. That’s how I think it should work because that’s how it worked when I was coming through as a kid.”

Hearts are keen to get more youth players into their first team.

He offered an enthusiastic appraisal of the Lowland League in which Hearts, Celtic and Rangers all entered B teams by paying £40,000 each last summer. The Edinburgh club hope to be voted in again for next season. “It’s been brilliant for us and great for me personally,” continued Naismith, who retired from an illustrious playing career aged 34 in 2021 to become player development manager at Riccarton.

“I’m not in a rush to be a manager but I want to learn because it’s different to playing. I would hope this Lowland League arrangement continues next season for Hearts because we have gained a lot from it. I think the Lowland League have got something from it financially and what ourselves, Celtic and Rangers bring to the league. There will always be pros and cons and different opinions. Hopefully it can be arranged and we can all keep progressing.”

Hearts now aim to employ their academy teenagers full-time upon leaving school with the hope of testing them at B team level. This season, 16-year-old left-winger Bobby McLuckie has risen to that very challenge in his first year as a professional footballer. He is already a B-team regular and was an unused substitute in first-team games against Livingston, St Johnstone and Rangers.

“The older ones who aren’t getting contracts, you need to give them to freedom to go and try to make a career for themselves,” said Naismith. “They can go on loan somewhere or whatever, so your team changes halfway through a season and that’s what has happened to us with the B team.

“We also have a few injuries but I say it all the time: This is an opportunity for the younger guys coming in. There is no point in us saying it’s all nicey-nicey because two years down the line when they are not getting a contract – and they are three years behind their mates in terms of education and everything else because they went into football – that’s no good for them.

“We need to test them and show them what it’s going to be like. Are they going to be up to the challenge? As soon as you see progress, then they have a chance. Bobby McLuckie is an example: Somebody who has come in from school [last summer], thrived and been one of our biggest threats all season. He is only 16.

“To be playing in the Lowland League against men, he is a much better player now than he was at the start of the season. Plus, he has been chapping on the first-team door. That’s what we want. That is it in a nutshell. The other lads around him are seeing that and they want to do extra in the gym and on the pitch to get that opportunity themselves.”