The head coach was asked about the prospective £10m Starlizard deal
Hearts head coach Steven Naismith gave his reaction today following the club’s talks over a £10m investment deal with Tony Bloom and Starlizard. Reluctant to go into detail on the matter, Naismith discussed the benefits of using data to analyse players and target new recruits.
Starlizard’s technology has helped Brighton and Hove Albion earn more than £300m in transfer profits in recent years. Bloom, the English Premier League club’s chairman, is also the Starlizard owner. He is keen to introduce their algorithms to Scottish football and talks with Hearts are at an advanced stage.
Naismith is eager to see his club benefit from the unique data-led software Starlizard have developed. “To be honest, most things at the club I’m kept up to date with. I’m not in a position to speak in on it,” he said ahead of Saturday’s Premiership trip to St Mirren. “On data in general, I think it’s a thing that’s been happening in football for the last 10-15 years. It’s now at a point where it’s not just general output from players, it’s in every area of the clubs. I think it’s something that’s only going to get bigger in football.
“There are areas of the game that it’s very early on in, but there are other areas that can be a massive benefit. We use as much at the moment as we can and what we’ve got the resources for. But I think going forward in every area of every club, it’s going to be a big part of it. In terms of any deal, I’m not really in a position to speak any more about it.”
Asked if he could indicate when the deal might be completed, Naismith replied: “No. As I said, I’ve got more important things to be thinking about and that’s going to result tomorrow. The rest will be what it will be, when it will be, it will come out and things will be said at the right time by the people at the club that should be having those conversations.”
With Graeme Jones replacing Joe Savage as sporting director ahead of the prospective deal with Bloom, Hearts are continuing to evolve. Naismith spoke about the drive for constant progress at Riccarton. “I think change happens at football clubs whether it’s players, coaches, managers, backroom staff,” he said. “The one thing about Hearts, and I think I’m saying this from the moment I came here as a player, they’re looking to improve and progress as much as they can.
“Probably in the time I’ve been here, the progression has been at a much quicker rate than infrastructure is ready for and behind the scenes is ready for. We’re making rapid steps. The club always look to make improvements, even with Graham coming in. The role will be slightly different to what Joe’s was. That’s to try and make us more efficient, be on top of different things that we think are needing improvement more now than when Joe came in.”
Hearts already use data-driven technology in a daily basis, although not as advanced as Starlizard’s. “We use it with the players’ fitness, we use it with the style of play, we use it with the opposition analysis, we use it with recruitment,” explained Naismith. “We use it at the levels that we’ve got at our disposal at the moment. We’re not at the top end of where it is generally in football.
“Like I said, I think like everything in football, as it’s more mainstream and the resources are becoming easier to access, then it will get touched on in all of these areas. We try as much as we can with the different data packages that we’ve got at the moment, but there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement with the better resources that you get.”
Turning his attention to a huge game in Paisley as Hearts look to move off the bottom of the Premiership, Naismith accepted responsibility for what has gone wrong this season. The Edinburgh club have lost seven games in a row in all competitions and badly need a result against St Mirren.
“It’s been a tough start. There have been some poor moments, I think there have been good moments, even last week,” Naismith pointed out. “I think the effect we can take from Celtic’s [5-1 Champions League] result during the week is our performance defensively was alright against them compared to what happened during the week. So there have been areas that have been decent, there are bigger areas.
“As you get success last season, you need to find other ways to put other teams under pressure. We’ve not done that well enough this season, for me that’s been the biggest thing. We’ve been punished for every mistake that we’ve made. I don’t think that will continue, I think we’ll get a bit of luck in some respects, but we need to be creating more chances and we need to take more chances. That’s ultimately the short-term fix to giving us better chances in games.
“When I’m saying we need to be better at this and that, we’ve not been good enough and that’s ultimately my mistake and my problem and I’m the one that’s at fault for that. But, as I’ve said continuously this season, we work tirelessly. We work tirelessly on the pitch, the players are really responsive to it,
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