Hearts CEO Andrew McKinlay has insisted it was not a 'knee-jerk' reaction from the club to sack Robbie Neilson.
The decision was taken to relieve the Scottish coach from his duties at Tynecastle after Saturday's disappointing 2-0 defeat to St Mirren. Neilson had been the subject of heavy criticism from sections of the Hearts support, with a less-than subliminal message spray painted on to a club crest outside the stadium that read "F*** off Neilson" after a previous loss to Kilmarnock.
The Gorgie hierarchy claim it was an 'extremely difficult' decision to end Neilson's second spell in charge after he secured European football, promotion back to the top flight and two Scottish Cup finals in his latest stint in the capital. Former Rangers man Steven Naismith was then announced as interim manager until the end of the season.
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Now CEO McKinlay has shed some light on the decision making process and claims it was not a 'gut' decision.
He said: "Yeah, a really difficult decision as we've said. There's been a lot of discussion around is it the right decision and obviously we want to give ourselves the best opportunity in those last seven games of finishing third in the league.
"We know what comes with that, it's very important to us. I think it's fair to say that over the last number of weeks, it's not a knee-jerk or gut decision made on the back of one result.
"Over the last few weeks results have been poor but I think also performances have left a lot to desire and it got to the stage where it was hard to see how we were going to turn it around."
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