‘Tynecastle strategy has already seen club push boat out’

Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay insists there are no plans to loosen the purse strings – because they had already pushed the boat out to land European group-stage football.

The Gorgie side are guaranteed at least six matches in the rebranded Conference League next season and with that comes a £5 million bounty.

As it stands, they will enter the Europa League play-off round, but will have the consolation of competing in the continent’s third competition should they fail to progress.

Hearts enjoyed groupstage football in the Europa Conference League at the start of the 2022-23 campaign, while Aberdeen got that benefit this term after finishing third in the Premiership last year.

McKinlay admits the club made a strategic decision to maintain a healthy playing budget to boost their hopes of securing a prolonged run in Europe.

He said: “The finances (from Europe) definitely will help, but one thing I would say and it’s something that may have gone under the radar a bit, there’s a lot of talk about now we’ve got this money, we’ll spend more on the squad.

“We actually spent the same on the squad this season as we did last season when we were in the group stages, which stretched our finances, but we did that on purpose as we thought ‘Well, we’ve had one season of it, are we going to downsize again and then maybe not get that again?’

“We as a board have a strategy that we want to get into European groupstage football.

“So it’s unlikely that we have a squad cost that is a lot bigger, if at all, than we’ve got.”

Hearts have already snapped up Yan Dhanda, Blair Spittal and James Penrice on pre-contracts and manager Steven Naismith is planning to add more to his squad in the coming weeks.

However, McKinlay concedes that finding the right formula of building a squad that can compete both in Europe and domestically is difficult.

He added: “The playing squad is an interesting one as there is a bit of a double-edged sword there.

“The important thing is to have a team that can play in Europe, but then you can freshen it up at the weekend with some players who are maybe more used to playing in Scotland and understand the demands of playing at a club like Hearts.

“The other side of the equation is if you have too big a squad, especially once you come out of Europe, to keep 20 players happy, it can be very difficult for a manager.

“So it is a hard balance, but it is definitely something that we’re aware of.”

Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay.