Derek McInnes says long-serving players have helped Hearts improve

Derek McInnes was keen to highlight the importance of his core of longer-serving Hearts players amid the hype surrounding summer signings like Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis.

The Jambos have taken the Premiership by storm this term, surging five points clear at the top-of-the-table ahead of Sunday’s Tynecastle showdown with stuttering champions Celtic.

Shrewd recruitment with the aid of Jamestown Analytics’ data has been widely deemed key to Hearts’ success, with the likes of Greek winger Kyziridis and Portuguese forward Braga grabbing the headlines since moving to Edinburgh from Slovakian club Zemplin and Norwegian second-tier side Aalesund respectively in the summer.

Alexander Schwolow, Stuart Findlay and Oisin McEntee are other recent signings who have become regular starters for the rampant early pacesetters.

However, McInnes, who took charge in May after Hearts finished seventh last term, was eager to point out that five players who have been at the club since 2022 or longer – Craig Halkett, Stephen Kingsley, Beni Baningime, Cammy Devlin and Lawrence Shankland – have all been starting regularly in his table-topping team.

“A lot’s been made of the recruitment and all the rest of it,” he said. “But I think I need to say that half the team every week, more than half the team, is players that I inherited, players who were already in the building and are producing good form.”

While many Hearts supporters felt a complete overhaul was required in the summer, McInnes insisted he always believed he was taking over a strong squad of players merely in need of some rejuvenation.

“I think when you come into a club and the club’s under-performing for whatever reason, you’ve got a lot of players who are not feeling great about themselves, maybe fingers pointing about under-achieving and all the rest of it,” said the manager.

“So I think when you go into a club, it’s important for a manager and a staff to try and make players feel good about themselves, make them feel valued and give them those opportunities.

“These lads, amongst so many others, have been first class. There’s good players here, I always thought there was good players.

“I said that in my first press conference, that I was looking forward to the players we could bring in, but that I was also well aware of the capabilities of the players already in the building. Those lads have been outstanding.”