YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE
Breaking through at a club mired in relegation trouble may not seem ideal, but fearless star Hickey is thriving at Tynecastle
FORGET the bargains piled high on the shelves along Princes Street — the real January clear-out is taking place just a couple of miles down the road.
With his team cast five points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership table, new Hearts manager Daniel Stendel is using the winter break to gut his playing squad.
Glenn Whelan was the first casualty. Signed on a one-year deal last summer, the Irishman’s performances for the Edinburgh club were a pale imitation of his peak as a Premier League and international operator. Abruptly dropped by Stendel in December, the 35-year-old’s contract has now been terminated.
Stendel bared his teeth again when Christophe Berra was sentenced to train with the club’s reserves, a move that has effectively ended the veteran defender’s stint as club captain. Wingers Jake Mulraney and Craig Wighton have suffered a similar fate and striker Aidan Keena’s surprise departure for Hartlepool has further thinned the ranks.
Others may yet fall victim to the January cull, but teenage defender Aaron Hickey can rest assured that his place is safe.
Hearts looked a listless and shambolic lot for most of 2019 but former manager Craig Levein’s decision to blood the full-back in a
league match at Pittodrie in May stands as arguably his best decision of the year.
At just 16, Hickey became the youngest player of the modern era to start a Scottish Cup Final and, after more than holding his own against Celtic’s James Forrest at Hampden, he continued to nail down a place in the team as the new season developed.
Manchester City have opened a file on the full-back and continue to monitor his development but, while club chair Ann Budge has discussed Hickey during talks aimed at strengthening links with City, she remains involved in the process of trying to secure the youngster on a new long-term contract.
Levein’s former assistant Austin MacPhee remains employed by the club and has taken on some of the duties of a proposed sporting director, specifically regarding recruitment. Yet having selected Hickey to start five consecutive matches during his stint as interim boss, he sees no reason for Stendel to address the left-back area.
He regards Hickey as a special talent and the least of Stendel’s worries when it comes to mentality.
‘Rarely does a young player come into a team that is not overperforming and stay in,’ said MacPhee. ‘That’s because naturally you change things because the team is not winning. Aaron has been a constant.
‘If I’d seen him being affected I would have taken him out but he has incredible resilience for a young guy. I see him as being a bit different in that respect. I don’t think he is too affected by the outside world.
‘He has had to play in a stadium where the players aren’t necessarily in the best place yet he has consistently taken the ball and played well. There have also been games where it hasn’t gone perfectly for Aaron but his resilience after a mistake has been fantastic.
‘First half against Rangers at Tynecastle they played on him a lot and he made a couple of small mistakes. I think he actually lost (Alfredo) Morelos for the goal but second half he was brilliant.
‘I’ve seen that in a few games, he has made an error and been fantastic. That tells you a lot about his character. He uses it as a motivation, not a reason to shy away from the game.’
Hickey’s current contract has another 18 months to run, so Hearts have some breathing space regarding the details of any new arrangement.
‘I know Ann is speaking to Aaron’s dad or representative, she is dealing with that situation personally,’ adds MacPhee, who sees shades of Leicester defender Jonny Evans in the way the teenager operates.
A member of Michael O’Neill’s backroom staff with Northern Ireland, MacPhee has worked closely with Evans for years and admires his versatility.
‘I think Aaron is a fantastic player and he is so young that he could play in a lot of positions. He could end up being a Sergio Busquets kind of figure and he reminds me a lot of Jonny Evans, in the way he defends and always wants the ball. Even the way he moves.
‘Jonny has spent some of his career at left-back, at centre-back and also defensive midfield. It will be interesting to see where Aaron ends up but he is certainly a young player I would hang my hat on.’
MacPhee’s own role at Hearts has become fuzzy in recent weeks. Appointed caretaker in the wake of
Levein’s removal from the frontline, he was moved into the background after the appointment of Stendel and has been compiling a list of potential transfer targets for the club.
With Berra now training with the reserves and told he is no longer required, Stendel has been reviewing recruitment options in the centre-back department.
MacPhee has already given his opinion on Stoke City’s Liam Lindsay, another currently managed by O’Neill, and also on Jimmy Dunne, who spent time at Tynecastle on loan from Burnley last season and is again available after cutting short a spell at Fleetwood Town last week.
Yet it’s the return of John Souttar that really gets MacPhee’s juices flowing. Souttar hasn’t played for Hearts since limping out of the club’s opening league game in August. His ankle injury proved complicated but he is now close to a return and, as another thoroughly modern defender, MacPhee believes he can help transform the way Hearts play.
Like Hickey, Souttar burst to prominence at the age of 16 and his early performances for Dundee United showcased his ball-playing potential. Upon bringing Souttar to Tynecastle, Levein resolved to add those rougher edges to his game but MacPhee insists Souttar needn’t be a warrior to make it to the very top
of the game.
‘If you look at Pep Guardiola, he’s made Fernandinho into a centreback at Man City, he made Joshua Kimmich, who’s 5ft 9in, into a centre-back at Bayern Munich, he made Javier Mascherano into a centre-back at Barcelona,’ reasons MacPhee. ‘That’s because these top teams play their football on the halfway line.
‘Your responsibility as a centreback is to deal with five counterattacks a game and play passes. That’s why I think that if John Souttar was to leave Hearts, he could certainly skip a couple of levels.
‘In the modern game I think John has the capacity to go from Hearts right to the top level. I know he’s always developing, but I genuinely believe that John has a world-class range of passing as a centre-back. I can show people evidence of that.
‘If you go to the best teams, that’s your job, because you have the ball 70 per cent of the time. So when John comes back into the Hearts team a lot of clubs will be looking at that.’
MacPhee holds up Souttar’s former Tannadice team-mate Andy Robertson as the perfect example of how he can aspire to elite level. Yet while Robertson thrives at Liverpool,
MacPhee believes Souttar, now 23, might ultimately find his future away from the British Isles.
‘People talk about Scottish players not going abroad but I can actually see John playing in another country. He has that kind of profile,’ adds MacPhee.
‘I think Dundee United turned down a bid of a million euros from Roma when John was 17, and I can see why an Italian club would be interested in him. Young Scots don’t necessarily need to go to the Championship or the bottom of the English Premier League.
‘You’re not telling me Andy Robertson would be as effective if he was playing for Stoke on the back foot, dealing with diagonal balls against two strikers at 6ft 3in. ‘Ultimately, what you do as a Liverpool full-back is run into the opponent’s half and cross first time. Robertson gets judged and critiqued on breaking beyond the right-back 30 yards from goal and crossing the ball first time. That’s his job and he’s world class at it.
‘And that’s my point about John Souttar. What is the job? Is the job to go and deal with Wigan’s centre-forwards on a wet day in Stoke? Or is the job to stand on the halfway line for Guardiola and pick a pass to one of those five players on the front line? ‘John looks in great condition and he’s been working very hard. I know John will be as good as he can be.’
Aaron has such incredible resilience for a young guy. He’s a bit different
John Souttar’s range of passing is world class. He has the capacity to go straight to the top level