Hibs boss Lee Johnson insists spells as a player in Scotland with Hearts and Kilmarnock 'weren't amazing'

Lee Johnson has spoken about his time as a player in Scotland with Hearts and Kilmarnock, admitting that neither spell was ‘amazing’.

The Hibs manager played a handful of games for the Tynecastle Park side in 2006 and left Rugby Park less than 12 months into a two-and-half-year deal in 2013.

Johnson spoke about his time at Hearts some years ago, branding it a ‘unique situation’.

Speaking to a number of Hibs fan podcasts the Easter Road boss said: "My experiences in Scotland as a player weren't amazing. At Kilmarnock it was a short stint but a successful one, because we won the League Cup.

"At Hearts it was a disaster of a regime with Vladimir Romanov in charge, and everything he brought.

"Although I loved the lads and stayed friends with the majority of them all the way through, it wasn't a great feeling; it was a feeling of frustration because I felt the club was being pushed in the wrong direction by somebody who didn't have genuine ambitions for the place. People need to know, although they knew it at the time.

"But football is tough, to be a footballer isn't easy. You're desperate to be one of those players who's a regular and sometimes, politically in that case, it's nigh-on impossible.

"It was a really good team we had but it was a real learning curve for me at Hearts, having been brought up here from Yeovil where I’d been a regular and played 200 games as a consistent starter."