The Hearts left-back has opened up on his move to Tynecastle and revealed the bold statement he made during talks.

James Penrice has given an insight into why he snubbed a number of other offers to join Hearts last summer - and revealed the bold admission he made to former head coach Steven Naismith during talks.

After starting his career at Partick Thistle, Penrice joined Livingston on a permanent deal in July 2021 after spending time on loan at the Almondvale Stadium earlier in his career. After making over a century of appearances over a three-year spell, Penrice left Livi on a free transfer last summer and Hearts fought of competition from several other clubs to land the left-back.

Since moving to Tynecastle, Penrice has never looked back and has thrived under new head coach Neil Critchley after a challenging start to the season under his predecessor. With two goals and five assists in 39 appearances in all competitions, Penrice has become a firm favourite with the home faithful and he has revealed the major changes he had to become accustomed to after agreeing to join the club.

He told the Open Goal podcast: “(I met) Naisy and Joe Savage (former sporting director) in the January. He actually pulled me, we were playing 2nd January, and my agent had spoken to a couple of teams. I was walking around the pitch, I was actually injured, I played a month with an injury and as I was walking around the pitch Naisy has pulled me to the side of the pitch and said I’m going to speak to you soon. Claire, who is at Hearts, came up after the game and asked if I’d signed a pre-contract with anyone. I was said no and they said Joe Savage and Naisy want to meet you next week.

“They had a wee laptop with all my clips and stuff, good bits and bad bits, I walked out and phoned me Mam and said I was signing for Hearts, nobody else. Livingston played a different way so a lot of the time it was finding channels and stuff like that. Smashing the ball long. He basically said when you come to Hearts you can’t do that, it’s not the way we play, he showed me the clips, showed me the good bits about getting forward and crossing into the box and he said this is what I want you to bring to Hearts.”

Penrice also revealed he made a somewhat bold statement during his discussions after Naismith initially suggested the left-back would be used as cover for Alex Cochrane and admitted his current player was ‘a wee bit in front’ of his potential signing. However, Penrice hit back stating he disagreement with that suggestion and saw the move to Tynecastle as an opportunity to kick on.

He said: “At the time I was coming in to compete with Cochrane and he (Naismith) said I think Alex is a wee bit in front of you. I said sorry I don’t think he is. I said that to him. It was a wee bit different but I enjoy it. I was brought in to be the backup, they didn’t expect a lot from me when I was joining and a lot of people were saying why is he going to Hearts, he’s not going to play. I saw it as an opportunity to kick on and I think I’ve done that this season.”

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