New Hearts boss Critchley has watched EVERY Jambos match so far this season in Scottish football deep dive

New Hearts head coach Neil Critchley (Pic: SNS) | SNS Group

New Hearts head coach Neil Critchley says he has spent a lot of time over the past few weeks watching Scottish football, including ALL of the Jambos competitive fixtures so far.

The former Liverpool coach has done a deep dive into Scottish football over the past few weeks, locking himself away and spending hours in front of a laptop trying to learn everything he can. Among other things, the 45-year old also commented on the perceived standard of the league down south and what it was like working for legendary manager Jurgen Klopp.

On the research he did before arriving in Edinburgh, the ex Blackpool and QPR gaffer said: “Some of that is just from myself, visually, speaking to people who also might know a little bit about Hearts and the club and the people who are here and also then you can do your own research. I have certain people I know in the industry that can give me data to back up things that I'm seeing as well, so I've always used that in my previous jobs in terms of preparation for games, to benchmark your team after games, in recruiting players and that's what I did when I was watching Hearts, analysing them for this job.

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“I was stuck away in my bat cave back at my house, stuck in front of my laptop, which I thoroughly enjoy because it gave me a purpose every day. There's an expectation here because of the size of the club and where we want to get to. I'm comfortable with that.

“It's actually a good thing. You've got to use that as a positive. I wouldn't have come here if I didn't fancy that challenge and I didn't want to be here. I want to be here. I want to have expectation, I want to have pressure because if you then are successful, that meaning of what you've done, I think it means more.”

Critchley’s first job in the Gorgie hot-seat will be picking up their first domestic three points against St Mirren this Saturday. They then have a European fixture against Omonia followed by the Edinburgh Derby in Leith.

“When I looked at the fixture list and seen how congested it is, how busy it is, but also the games we've got and how exciting it is. It's game on, I can't wait. But our immediate aim is, it's a cliche, you only take one game at a time, it's fully on St Mirren this weekend. 

“I know where we are and I know the reality of the situation that we're in this moment in time, but I always see it as a positive. I see plenty of games, plenty of points to play for, and we can change the feeling around the place and in the club very, very quickly.

“I have to say from being around the staff and the players this morning, and this is not meant as a negative, and I know this can happen with change, but everyone I've spoken to speaks well of the group in terms of the people. When I've watched the games, I don't see any lack of togetherness or spirit.

“I just see some things maybe have not gone quite their way yet so far. There are certain aspects of the game I think we can improve on, and that'll be my immediate focus.”

What attracted Neil Critchley to Hearts and what can supporters expect?

The new head coach also discussed what a Neil Critchley side looks like. On top of that, he commented on what initially attracted him to the Hearts Job.

On the appeal of the Hearts job he said: “The enormity of the club, you've only got to come out here and look around the stadium and the facilities and look at the training facilities. I think there's stability in the background, I think I'm going to get really good support and the right conditions, it's a team that's in Europe and you look at the supporter base, look at their following at home and away, there's lots to be excited about being the head coach of this football club.”

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On how he hopes to set up the team, he added: “We want to be forward-thinking in how we play, so attack with the ball, attack without the ball, have intensity, have aggression, have the ball. I think if you've got possession of the ball, it gives you a better chance of deciding what happens on the pitch. I think that would be some of the reasons, like the analytics in terms of the model in which we want to adopt here to take the club forward.

“Again, what I see from the team and what I've seen recently, sometimes at this moment in time you also have to do what you think is the right thing for the players and sometimes simplicity is genius and just putting the right players in the right positions and allow them to do what their attributes bring to the pitch, I think that's also something for me to consider right now.”

How the ‘standard’ of Scottish football is perceived in England and working alongside Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool

It’s fair to say that the worries of some supporters may have been down to the multiple managers and players who have come to Scotland from the EFL or Premier League expecting a certain ‘standard’ only to receive a rude awakening. However, in Critchley’s case, he is under no illusion about what to expect this side of the Tweed.

He said: “I'm a football fan and I love football, so I've watched numerous games over the years from Scottish football and I've watched all the games so far this season, and I think that it's in a place where something could happen that's quite exciting in the future, I think there's good stability around the league, and I look at some of the players who I've worked with previously or had the opportunity to come up against and I see how well they're doing, then I think that speaks volumes for the level of where this league is at at this moment in time.

“The game's the game, something that was labelled at me when I left Liverpool to go to Blackpool was, 'Oh he's only a youth coach, what does he know about men's football?' We got promoted in our first year.

“My formative years as a coach were at Crewe, which was League Two, League One, and they had a hugely successful spell in the Championship, I think it was like 10 or 11 years consecutively. I played non-league football a little bit, so I've seen a broad spectrum of what it looks like right across the board, and I've seen what it's like at the top end as well, so I think I've got a good broad spectrum of what football looks like.”

Finally, on what he learned working alongside the legendary Jurgen Klopp at his all conquering Liverpool team, the new Jambos gaffer added: “I think one of his greatest strengths is his authenticity, what you see is what you get. He just had a way of speaking to people and dealing with people which I thought was fantastic. That's why he created an environment that was unique and very special. I think they got the success, not just because of the quality of the players that were there, but also because of the human aspect. I thought there was no better than him in producing that.

“I wasn't there all the time, every day, but I lived it and I had enough experiences of being around it, speaking to him to know that it was something special. It sounds a bit cheesy or corny, but they're good people. The players were a good group of people, humble, hardworking, and you can't play for Jürgen Klopp in one of his teams if you don't have certain characteristics. That's what I want to try and bring and replicate here.”