![]()
#069 - It’s time to rediscover ourselves
28/05/2030 -- Actually it wasn’t a bad thing to finally have some space for redeveloping the team. After almost five years there wasn’t barely any room for it other than the short pre-season periods. Now we had a run of ten games for practicing some things in real matches. The main two things I did was practicing a second tactic and find out which youngsters are good enough to take part in our next season squad. Warning! This will be a huge update. Especially for those of you who are enjoying this story so much, ha-ha!
Since I started this career as a manager I never used more than one tactic at the same time. At
Spartans it didn’t make sense obvious. Learning a bunch of amateurs two tactics is nearly impossible. Especially if you take in count Spartans was semi-professional organized and together with the busy schedule there was barely time left for practicing. When I joined
Hearts you possibly can remember it was a huge mess from the start. So I wanted to keep it stupid simple. Using a basic tactic without too much player instructions. Throughout the years I optimized the tactic and the season before this one it really sorts out. But I think now the time is right to introduce a second tactic next to our starting tactic. Because we are struggling quite often against the better teams in the league (and Europe as well) I decide to create a more defensive tactic. To keep things clear for the players and having the possibility for switching easily between the tactics I used the exact same formation, but a whole different kind of playing style. Our main tactic will be a 4-4-2 positive system, which means slightly more attacking then we did before (it was balanced) and the second one is some kind of a 4-4-2 parking-the-bus system. Keep every line very tight and small to each other, but maximize the opportunities for fast counter-attacks. We have some pacey wingers, which could be really useful in this system.
In the last ten matches of the season I used the new 4-4-2 parking-the-bus system to get familiar with it for next season. Which you can see immediately according to the results. Excepted the match against
Kilmarnock we didn’t score a lot, but at the other hand we didn’t concede a lot of goals as well. We even beat
Celtic in their own stadium! Although there are more reasons for it, but later more on that. We were only outplayed by
Rangers, but there was a reason for as well: we had to play with our awful reserve goalkeeper in that particular match only because
Rae picked up a little injury just before the match. As already said before I also used my youngsters in almost every match. That was really helpful. I have a very good picture now which of them are good enough and which guys needs to develop more. I will talk about it in a minute when I’m judging the performances of my squad.
The main reason we beat
Celtic with
Rangers dethroning them as the champion for the first time after eighteen consecutive league titles, is because of they sold a whole bunch of their star players both at the start of the season as well in the winter transfer window. They earned more than an astonishing £140,000,000 in only one year, but at the other hand their squad has weakened just a little bit too much. Rangers took advantage of it, which is a good thing I guess. Scottish football definitely needs to be associated with more teams who are able to win the league other than Celtic only. As already expected we finished fourth ourselves. Definitely not a result to be proud of but
Celtic,
Rangers and
Aberdeen achieved just far more stable than we did. We are not that far behind, but we couldn’t compete with them this season for a single moment. We need to do better. Way better.
![]()
![]()
![]()
As already showed halfway this season most of the players achieved quite well. The statistics dropped a bit because of the use of a more defensive tactic, but most individuals performed as I expected. I mentioned individuals for a reason. The strange thing is that most players did where they capable of, but as a team it isn’t good enough. So we need some fresh blood, which hopefully re-boosts our team spirit. Playing to long with the same players is probably not ideal I guess. I’m starting with our goalkeepers. I’m quite pleased we signed
David Rae. After a somewhat doubtful start he proved he is a far better goalkeeper than
Stone will ever be. His rating is not significantly higher, but as you probably know the goalkeeper ratings in this FM are barely reaching a seven even if he’s acting like an octopus. So scoring almost 0.10 higher stan Stone is a big step forward. Spoken about Stone, he is going to leave us. His contract is expiring and he hasn’t any intention to lengthen it. And we didn’t want it too. We wish him all the best in the future.
Graham will be our back-up goalkeeper next season. At least he is tall… But that’s pretty much it, ha-ha.
![]()
The newbies in our last line performed well. Just as Rae;
McIlroy had a tough start, but after I used
Williams again and bringing in McIlroy more carefully he played better and better. At some point he overtook Williams and together with
Strang they will form a very solid duo. Although 31- year old Williams signed a new one-year deal, he will be our luxury center-back reserve player. Veteran
Stuart Findlay is leaving us. His contract is expiring and over the last three season he barely played a match anymore. He is 33 now, probably he will find a new club to end his career. That means we need at least one new center back. Although
Imrie can play as a center back I don’t have that much faith in him for this position because his heading is just shit. I prefer to use him as a left fullback. As a fullback he did his job as a reserve, but
Nissen is definitely our rising star. He is more attacking and took care for 7 assists, which is pleasing me. The seasons before our wingbacks were not as much involved in our field play as I wanted when we do have the ball, so we are on our way. Even more if you take in count
Macgregor and
Bryson did their job at the right hand side of the pitch. Together they accounted for 20(!) assists! No big deal at all to decide we are going ahead with all of them, so we only need one new center back to secure our squad depth.
In our tactic our central midfielders are crucial. If they perform good, our whole squad is playing better football automatically. The last few years
Cochrane growth as a leader and a very solid all-round player who I can count on. He proves himself again and is staying for sure.
Mimnaugh had a good season as well, but the new tactic is not fitting him very well. Since we are using our new defensive tactic he barely played a role of any importance. That worries me a bit, since he is with us he is one of the key players. As already said I used a couple of our youngsters. Two of them are midfielders, called
David Smith and
Craig McNeil. One thing is obvious: they are not there yet. I will try to loan them both next season. Wingers
Kenny,
Scullion and
Woods did all right. Especially
Scullion proved we really can’t without him. He missed the complete first half of the season but when he became fit again he immediately starts scoring goals. A lot. I just love him and of course he will be with us next season.
Woods performed really good as Scullion’s replacement and
Kenny improved this season in comparison with the season before.
Darcy is not as good anymore when we signed him three years ago. He is just 29, but it seems he is starting to decline a bit. He is still on a 1-year deal, but if a team is coming in with a nice offer I probably will accept it.
Spence is a sort of a new
McAlister. We can play him nearly everywhere, so he is a useful sub. He will probably staying with us as well. All summarized our four starting midfielders are very decent (if
Mimnaugh can reach his normal level of football) but if one of them is suspended or injured, the quality is dropping immediately. So, we are going to search for at least one central midfielder who can compete with Cochrane and Mimnaugh and possibly one more to create enough squad depth. Of course we always keep our eyes shut wide open for other gems for the wing-positions as well.
Our strikers did well again.
Tompkins had a brilliant season and crowned himself as the league’s top goalscorer.
Storey performed okay as a back-up striker and
Saunders faced a little drop back which you see quite often with youngsters after a brilliant year. He only scored six goals in the league, which is way to less of course. But he is definitely not written off, he still looks promising and has become a Scottish international as well last year. But there is more! After so many years we finally had a talented gem from our academy. Only one, but it’s more than nothing.
Chris Bain seems a very talented striker and, maybe even more important, he is a targetman (with also having the right attributes for it). A position which is very useful in our new defensive tactic. Sadly he didn’t score a goal within the playing time I gave him this far, but I don’t give up that fast! At this point I’m not sure yet if I send him on loan next season or not, it depends a bit how the pre-season period goes.
All summarized we don’t need to renew our squad very heavily, but signing a new central midfielder and a proper centre back, together with our new tactic could be the key to perform much better next season. Although we can’t renew our complete squad as well. Despite the clubs financial situation is healthy, there isn’t really much money to go completely wild. Well, that’s all it for now. We definitely have some work to do at the transfer market, but fulfilling our wishes should be realistic. After last season I don’t think many of our players are wanted by bigger clubs, so if we can strengthen the squad and the rest of it will stay than I will be fully prepared to go for a successful last season with Hearts (quite sure about that) with hopefully winning a prize or at least battling for it!
![]()
