Much of the talk around Hearts over these past few months has centred on Tony Bloom and what influence his Jamestown Analytics firm might have in shaping the club’s future.
Countless column inches and broadcast bulletins have been devoted to detailing the life and times of the Brighton billionaire after it was confirmed he holds an interest in investing in the Tynecastle club.
It is hardly a state secret that Bloom’s career as a professional gambler and highly successful poker player was a key factor in helping to build his business empire.
Yet, as Hearts get set to play another hand at Hampden, it’s Neil Critchley who must hope the cards fall in his favour and that Lady Luck smiles on maroon jerseys on Saturday afternoon in their Scottish Cup semi-final with Aberdeen.
As a manager under growing pressure, Critchley looks short-stacked as he heads to the national stadium. This could well be last-chance saloon to prove that he is the right man to take Hearts forward.
A dire 0-0 draw away at Motherwell last weekend consigned Hearts to a bottom-six finish in this season’s Premiership, with fans jeering Critchley and the players at full-time.
Pressure has been starting to build on Critchley ahead of Saturday’s cup semi final
The Hearts boss and his players failed to make Premiership top-six at Fir Park last week
Travelling fans were unhappy as Hearts failed to get victory required to reach top half of table
It was all there for Hearts. Knowing that victory would have secured a place in the top six, their destiny was completely in their own hands.
Fundamentally, however, they failed to perform in a big game when the pressure was on, a pattern which has developed throughout Critchley’s six-month reign.
The criticism over the past week has been fierce and unsparing. Some fans have already made up their minds. In their eyes, Critchley simply isn’t up to the job and should be moved on come the end of the season.
As for the manager himself, some of his comments over recent days could be perceived as an attempt to distance himself from the team’s failure to secure a top-six place.
Seeking to defend his record, Critchley said earlier this week: ‘We had two points after eight games [prior to his appointment as replacement for Steven Naismith]. Since I’ve been here, we’ve accumulated a lot of points.
‘You could say that, in points per game, we’d be comfortably in the top six if I was here all season.’
Critchley wasn’t wrong. The numbers support his theory that, over a full season, Hearts would be safely inside the top six.
Only Celtic, Rangers and Hibs — the current top three — have collected more points than Hearts since he arrived.
The emergence of James Wilson has been a rare bright spot for Tynecastle club this term
Blair Spittal, right, was a welcome addition at club but the Gorgie squad has felt unbalanced
When he took over from Naismith last October, Hearts were bottom of the table, winless and with only two points from their opening eight games.
Those first two or three months of the season were an absolute car crash. From a team who had cruised to third place last season, Hearts had fallen off a cliff.
Since taking over from Naismith, Critchley’s record is 14 wins, 12 defeats and seven draws from his 33 matches at the helm.
Not terrible, but not brilliant either. However, there is nuance in all of this. The numbers themselves don’t really paint the full picture of Critchley’s reign at Tynecastle.
Over the past six months, there has been no ‘wow’ moment. No statement victory in a big match to suggest this is a manager capable of leading the club to brighter fortunes.
In three derby matches against Hibs, Critchley has lost two and drawn one. Against Aberdeen, he has managed only a couple of draws.
Against Celtic and Rangers, Hearts have lost all four matches under Critchley this season by an aggregate scoreline of 11-2.
In a vital Europa Conference League match against FC Petrocub of Moldova last December, Hearts could only muster a 2-2 draw when qualification to the knockout stages was within their grasp.
Critchley has defended his record as boss but his team still need to win a big game
He has still to get the better of Hibernian counterpart David Gray in the Edinburgh derby
Again, it was a failure to get the job done in a high-pressure match. This is the criticism which hangs over Critchley as he and his players head to Hampden this afternoon.
‘Does it bother me? No, not really,’ he said when asked about Hearts’ record in big games this season.
‘Is it fair? Well, you could say that because there’s evidence of that. But it’s a small sample size, I’ve only been here six months.
‘If we’re still talking like this after another lengthier period of time…
‘The team’s evolving, we have to keep moving forward, we have to keep showing progression.
‘I believe we have and we’re moving in the right direction. If we keep doing that, then I firmly believe that the results in some of those games that you’re alluding to will be different.’
But how did Hearts get to this point? How could they go from being comfortably the third best team in the country 12 months ago to a mediocre finish in the bottom half of the table?
A lot of their problems stemmed from their recruitment last summer. Not that they necessarily signed bad players. In taking the likes of Blair Spittal from Motherwell and Yan Dhanda from Ross County, they were signing two players who were proven operators in the Premiership.
The Hearts fans who couldn’t look at Fir Park will remain to be convinced at Hampden
Hearts desperately need talisman Lawrence Shankland to rediscover his scoring touch
However, there became an imbalance in the squad. Hearts ended up with an abundance of players who preferred to play in central attacking midfield areas. They couldn’t get them all into the team at the same time. Dhanda has only started six league matches this season.
There’s a lack of pace and mobility in the team out wide. The failure to sign another striker last summer to support Lawrence Shankland has also left them light up top.
Young James Wilson has enjoyed a positive breakthrough campaign and, on the back of earning a Scotland debut recently, he has now signed a new contract until the summer of 2027.
But it has been the performances of Shankland which have typified everything about Hearts this season. It has been a bizarre and steep decline.
This time last year, Shankland was applying the finishing touches to a season which saw him score 31 goals and crowned PFA Scotland Player of the Year.
In the here and now, he has scored just four goals in 38 games this time around and is set to leave the club on a free transfer at the end of the season.
The Shankland decline started as soon as he turned up to the Scotland squad prior to Euro 2024 last summer. Here was a massive opportunity for him to go and grab the jersey and nail down a starting spot in Steve Clarke’s starting XI for the tournament.
Physically, however, he looked miles off it. Shankland didn’t seem bothered, seemingly oblivious to the chance that was passing him by.
His poor form for his club this season has surely reduced the list — and calibre — of suitors willing to sign him in the summer.
Critchley has some last-minute chats with his players before the crucial game with Dons
Victory against Aberdeen would go a long way to relieving some of the pressure on manager
The Hearts squad are put through their paces at Oriam before facing Jimmy Thelin’s Dons
Shankland has been dropped to the bench over the past fortnight for the each of the last two games against Dundee United and Motherwell.
There will be plenty of Hearts fans out there who feel that should have happened long ago, given his overall performance levels.
Yet, the irony is, Shankland probably remains their best bet for a goal in what is now comfortably their biggest match of the campaign.
Saturday’s game is season-defining for Hearts. A win over Aberdeen would propel them into a Scottish Cup final and salvage some positivity from an otherwise dreadful campaign.
For Critchley, it could well be job-defining. As things stand, the general feeling is that he retains a decent amount of support and goodwill from the Hearts hierarchy.
Earlier this week, Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay spoke of the disappointment at the failure to finish in the top six.
‘Like everyone else, I’m absolutely gutted by it,’ he said. ‘There’s no way to sugarcoat it. It’s really important I apologise to the fans.
‘It’s well below their expectations and our expectations as a club to be in the bottom six. I was ridiculed by some for saying I was confident we’d make top six [when Critchley took over]. They can ridicule me now if they feel that’s appropriate.
Budding star Wilson will be keen to make his mark on the last-four clash at Hampden Park
‘As chief executive, I take my share of the blame for that. We need to knuckle down and make sure we don’t have a repeat of that in the future.
‘It’s a huge opportunity on Saturday for the team to prove their doubters wrong and I sincerely hope they do that.’
However, despite Critchley still holding decent support, a defeat to Aberdeen coupled with a poor finish to the league season over the next few weeks could yet change that.
Hearts don’t want to be constantly binning managers and burning through them every six months to a year. It’s not healthy.
But Critchley hasn’t shown anything yet to make it clear that he’s the right man to take the club forward next season.
This is massive for his future at Tynecastle. There are games where a manager dare not lose, then there are others they simply *must* win. For Critchley, this is the latter.
It is expected that just over 22,000 Hearts fans will be in attendance at Hampden. If things go wrong, it could easily turn vitriolic for a manager under growing pressure.
