Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay has rubbished claims they hit the panic button by sacking Robbie Neilson - insisting the decision was not driven by the fan “boo-ometer”.
The Jambos pulled the trigger on Neilson on Sunday and have promoted B team boss Steven Naismith to take charge for the remaining seven games as they look to rescue third position and the £5million Euro ticket.
Former captain Michael Stewart slammed the move and accused the Tynecastle hierarchy of panic measures claiming that “fan pressure has made them do it”. But McKinlay faced up the media yesterday and in a brutally honest account admitted the move is a risk but said he believes it gives the club a better chance of wrestling back third place. McKinlay said that he’d lost faith in Neilson’s ability to turn round a woeful run of form and that Naismith now has the opportunity to show he is the man to take Hearts forward long term by reclaiming third and the Euro millions that comes with it.
A wave of toxicity surged round Tynecastle at full-time on Saturday as fans vented after a fifth straight defeat. But McKinlay denied there was any panic in what came 24 hours later. He said: “No, absolutely not. The last few weeks have been really difficult for anyone watching the team.
“A panic decision would have been making it maybe several weeks ago when things were starting to not look great. We’ve watched it over the last few weeks. It was a run with some tough away fixtures but it wasn’t just the results but the performances.
“Then Saturday there, the hope was you come back to Tynecastle where we hadn’t lost all season except against the Old Firm or in Europe and it just didn’t happen for us. That really brought home to us that it was hard to see how we were going to turn the corner and we need to do that pretty quickly.
“I’ve been well aware from day one that the support are vocal, they’re very strong in their views and they’re entitled to it. The fans own the club but don’t run it - they have two seats on the board through the Foundation. So the voice of the fan is very clearly heard at the heart of the board. That’s how we gauge the voice of the fan.
“If it was based on the boo-ometer then that was pretty high quite a few weeks ago.
Hearts’ budget was the biggest outside the Old Firm this season but they’ve thrown away a 10-point lead over Aberdeen to slip two points behind the resurgent Dons. McKinlay said: “I’m pretty sure we have spent more than other clubs because we have had more money to spend.
“But I genuinely believe we have got the third best squad in the league even with our injuries You come to every game thinking ‘this will be the one, we will turn it round’.
“But then Motherwell, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock...even the games we won before then there was a concern about how we were winning. It got to the stage where it was difficult to see how it could happen.
“Every decision you make is a risk. So to have left Robbie in, people would say that was a massive risk.
“We all know what’s at stake financially over the next period of time and just finishing third in the league. It will be £5-6 million extra on your turnover. That’s a significant amount of money for our club. You look at the turmoil other clubs have had this season - one of them now ahead of us - and we believe we should be above.
"Will we give ourselves a greater opportunity if we make a change or leave it as it is? In the end we took the decision that we think we're giving ourselves a better chance by making the change."
McKinlay met Neilson in Glasgow after Sunday’s board meeting and says the fired boss was “pragmatic”. He added: “Was the die cast on Sunday morning? From my own perspective I had a view, but I knew there would then be a board discussion. And as our board discussions always are, they are challenging and robust and at the end of the day we come to a board view. And then we go forward with that.
“Board decisions are always unanimous, as far as I’m concerned. The Hearts board is an incredibly effective board.”
McKinlay said no timescale has been set to appoint a new permanent boss. St Mirren boss Stephen Robinson is among the early contenders but Naismith is the man in the role for now The chief executive said: “I want a manager who wins games. We do want youth coming through, we want to play nice football. But I also want a manager who has a proven track record as a winner.”
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