Neil Critchley reveals Hearts transfer talks as process of preparing for Heidenheim detailed

Neil Critchley has revealed that he has been involved in the early transfer window preparation last week.

CEO Andrew McKinlay confirmed last week that the Jambos have started their planning process for January, as he said Critchley was looking to work for a smaller squad. That doesn’t mean additions are ruled out, with the new head coach involved in some early discussions around what could happen in the winter window.

Sporting director Graeme Jones is still to officially begin work at Tynecastle and Critchley expects transfer chats to become more regular when he arrives from the SFA, but has confirmed that some talks over recruitment have been held. Hearts play Heidenheim in the Conference League on Thursday.

Critchley said: “I have, we've had some conversations. That's normal I think for the manager and recruitment and the people around you to have those discussions. Obviously when Graeme joins at the back end of the month as well, I'm sure those conversations will become more frequent as we look towards January and what we want to try and do.”

Full focus is on preparing for the match with Heidenheim on Thursday. Having won their opening two fixtures in the league phase against Dinamo Minsk away from home and Omonia Nicosia at Tynecastle, Hearts are in a strong position to progress to the next phase of the competition.

With a midweek game against Kilmarnock last week followed up by Saturday’s win at St Johnstone, there’s been little room to fully focus on the Bundesliga side. Critchley has explained the process of how he is preparing for the clash.

He said: “I've seen they played in the German Cup the other night when we were playing and obviously they've done very well. I'm aware of certain aspects of their play.

“I watch the games with the analysts and you try and then picture, you formulate the picture of how you think the game's going to be. You might watch a game that you're watching an opposition that are playing a completely different formation to us, a completely different style so therefore it's not a true reflection of the game that you're going to play.

“So sometimes the last game might not be the most relevant game, it might be a game that you have to go back six weeks and watch. You're trying to pick out moments in the game that you think that's where we're going to get an advantage or that's something that we need to stop in the opposition because this is what they're really good at, this is how we're going to do it.

“So it's just a process and it can be a number of games, it can be a game from last week, it can be a game from six weeks ago and you put all that information together, you condense it down, you filter it all out and make sure then the players just know exactly the key messages and what's expected of them in and out of possession.”