The hard thing will be to get good players to come here... but I will
DAFT as it may sound to Hearts fans who have seen their club recruit so poorly for so long, identifying elite talent isn’t the hardest part of any squad revamp.
Persuading good players to join a side sitting five points adrift at the bottom of the Scottish Premiership table? That’s where the real skill lies.
So, yes, Daniel Stendel knows he needs to replace the entire spine of his starting XI before the Jambos return to competitive action later this month.
He’s already targeted a goalkeeper, a centre-half, a central midfielder and a striker. As a matter of urgency.
As the former Barnsley boss is well aware, however, there are no video game-style cheat codes in real life; simply giving the green light for Hearts to go and get a player offers no guarantees of a done deal.
Stendel, who will be at least as occupied clearing out dead wood from an oversized squad over the course of the coming weeks, pointed out: ‘I have some ideas but, in the end, it’s not always my decision.
‘Our club has to decide, the other club has to decide, money decides and the player himself has to decide to come. I hope I can convince someone to come and join this club.
‘If you don’t know Scottish football and the league, and you just look at the table, it’s not so easy to be convinced. You try telling someone to come to the team at the bottom of the league — but explain that we’re so much better than that. It’s difficult. But I will do it.’
Stendel’s confidence in his ability to get the job done is rooted partly in the fact that he knows some of the players identified as potential signings.
Without wishing to get anyone in trouble, it’s highly possible that the odd nod and wink has already been exchanged.
Central defender Liam Lindsay and Welsh international goalkeeper Adam Davies both played for Stendel at Barnsley.
They’re currently at Stoke City, where former Hearts interim boss Austin MacPhee has an obvious international connection with new gaffer Michael O’Neill, a fact that can’t hurt in pushing a deal through.
Another Stoke pair, midfielder Peter Etebo and striker Mame Biram Diouf, have also been scouted by the Jambos.
Stendel is also insistent on the need to recall loan players Harry Cochrane and Anthony McDonald from Dunfermline immediately. He is adamant, too, that all new arrivals, regardless of how they’re added to the squad, share one value lacking from the current group — ambition.
In a damning indictment of what he has found since arriving in Edinburgh last month, the German said: ‘I like it when I can think: “This player can help us”.
‘Okay, it might be a difficult situation but we need more players like this. This is also the reason we will bring two or three loan players back to the squad in January from the academy — players who can give us more power in training and who have more ambition to say: “I want to play”.
‘At the moment the feeling is: “Okay, I will play or I will not play ... it doesn’t matter”. We need more ambition. This club has ambition, we want to be one of the best clubs in Scotland.
‘At the moment, there is a big gap between the best teams, and I want to have players in the squad who have ambitions. And I think for this we need new players.
‘When I came here, the first thought was only to win games. We looked at the best squads for the games. I have some opinions on some players, who is good enough and not good enough.’
There is hope, among Hearts supporters, that a few new faces will be augmented by the return of injured regulars.
A starting XI that includes a fully-fit John Souttar, Conor Washington and Steven Naismith — assuming all three can stay free of knocks and strains — would definitely be better than anything they’ve seen of late.
But Stendel won’t be relying on long-term absentees making a lasting impact. A lifetime in football has taught him that few players make that kind of return.
As for what he has in mind beyond mid-season crisis management, changing the philosophy of the team and implementing his own style of play, it will clearly have to wait.
‘The goal at the moment is to stabilise our team and to win games,’ he said. ‘We talk a bit about going higher in the table but, after my first five games, we just need to get some wins.
‘Then we can look in the summer for new things. At the moment, we need things to help us immediately — and turn things around over the next four months.
‘Three weeks is a good time to change it but, if you have not played for months, then you can’t expect to play the next ten games in a row and all is good. We don’t have much time. And we need to get the best players on the pitch who can change our game.’