Joe Savage explains why Hearts have 'one of the best in Scotland' in new academy director Frankie McAvoy

Joe Savage was effusive in his praise for Frankie McAvoy after the Hearts sporting director landed his “first choice” as the club’s new academy director.

The 54-year-old former Preston North End manager was officially confirmed as the new man in charge of the youth set-up on Thursday afternoon after Roger Arnott left the position vacant with his departure in January.

Savage and McAvoy have a strong working relationship going back to their days together with Alex Neil at Hamilton Accies, where they helped develop the likes of James McArthur and James McCarthy. From there the trio travelled to Norwich City and then on to Preston before Neil’s sacking and Savage’s departure to Tynecastle as sporting director, where he works in tandem with head coach Robbie Neilson.

The remit for McAvoy will be improving the Hearts youth set-up, which has produced a fair few players who have reached the first-team in recent years but hasn’t quite matched the calibre of the early-2010s group involving the likes of Callum Paterson, Jamie Walker, Jason Holt and Sam Nicholson. He’ll also take an active role in helping produce better players to assist manager Eva Olid and Hearts Women continue to grow in the SWPL 1.

Joe Savage and Frankie McAvoy after the latter's hiring as Hearts' new academy director. Picture: Contributed

Savage insists the Edinburgh club now have the right man in place to match their ambitions and create a better conveyer belt of talent coming through.

“I’ve obviously worked with him before. He’s a top operator. One of the best. He develops players and develops them really well. Especially at Hamilton Accies there are players who came through under him who’ve gone on to have really good careers. Frankie was my first choice,” Savage told Hearts TV.

“He’ll oversee all of the academy from the under-18s down for both the girls and the boys. We think he’ll be excellent. He not only develops players but develops coaches. He’s got a great way about him. He’s got a great character, good attitude and great outlook for how he wants football to be played.

“I think Robbie and [academy coaching development manager] John McLaughlin will really see a change in the players coming through. It’s cheap and it’s easy for me to say that, but in Frankie McAvoy I really believe who’ve got one of the best in the country.

“I think it’s a good academy we have, but like anything it can improve and get better. His experience of the clubs he has been at will help us hopefully produce better players. That’s the aim. We need to produce better players to give the first-team competition.

“As sporting director, I don’t want to constantly be signing players from Australia, England or whatever, I want to be looking in to the academy and saying ‘we’ve got a good right-back, centre-back, centre-forward etc, why don’t we bring them up into the first-team?’.

McAvoy admits Savage was a big influence in him taking the job at what he called a “massive club”. With experience in management, youth coaching, first-team coaching and leading an academy, he believes the key to success will be about focusing on those teaching the youngsters as much as concentration on the players themselves.

“It seems like a good place to be at the moment. Hearts are riding high and I’d love to help them going forward. The task ahead is assist in developing players to bring into the first-team and help Robbie in terms of going forward,” said McAvoy.

“I’ve been away from Scotland for seven years. It’s a place close to my heart. And I’m really looking forward to coming here to a fantastic club and giving it my best shot.

“There’s a great foundation already. The training centre at the Oriam is magnificent. The task, like every academy in Scotland, is to promote from within and get your own players into the first-team. It’s easy saying that. The difficult thing is producing them and getting them ready for the manager to call upon them.

“It’s not just my responsibility. It’ll be the responsibility of everyone working in the academy.

“I was at Hamilton Accies for ten years as most of that time as the academy director. The important part is not just developing players but developing members of staff as well. It’s about giving the experience and knowledge that I have to the other coaches working in the academy because that is vital. The better coaching sessions the players get, and better aspects of coaching that we give them, will open up more horizons for them and give them as many ways as we can to make them successful.

“We managed to do that at Hamilton Accies. You’ve got Andy Goldie, who was a coach that I had at Hamilton is now the academy director at Dundee United. So I’ve got a lot of people I know in the Scottish game and I’m just delighted to be back and employed by Hearts football club.”

In his interview with Hearts TV, Savage also revealed there are talks ongoing behind the scenes to create a better pathway for younger male footballers to reach the first-team. Since the scrapping of the Reserve League due to the Covid-19 pandemic there has been no platform for burgeoning talents to hone their skills between making the leap from under-18s level to the SPFL.

“There’s no reserve league or B team. We need to sort that,” he insisted. “There’s a taskforce looking to create one for Scottish football but if that doesn’t happen we need to look at creating a B team for ourselves. The jump from the 18s to the first-team is too big at the moment.”

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