Scottish Premiership Odds: Is Derek McInnes the Right Man for Jamestown Analytics?
Kai Watson 
Currently Hearts sit at the top of the Scottish Premiership, seven points clear of last year's champions Celtic, although they have played one game more. They are currently the only unbeaten side in the Scottish Premiership with nine wins and three draws from their opening twelve fixtures.
They are currently the top scorers in the league, having scored 29 which is eight more than rivals Hibs who are the second top scorers currently. They also have the joint second best defensive record in the league, having conceded ten, the same as Rangers, whilst Celtic have only conceded eight in eleven so far.
Hearts had not dropped any points since the draw against Motherwell in August, when they came back from 3-0 down, but they have drawn two out of their three matches and fans seem to have some concerns about the manager's style of play.
The club now has the use of Jamestown Analytics via Tony Bloom for their recruitment but Derek McInnes seemed an unusual choice to take the club forward. He knows the Scottish game very well and has had relative success with Aberdeen and Kilmarnock but is known for a less progressive style of play and has never been one to get his teams playing free-flowing attacking football.
Jamestown brings in players that are capable of playing expansive football and getting results doing it, with USG in particular showing that. Brighton have players that can play excellent football but sometimes struggle to put the results together and compete with those at the top. However, considering the size of the club and the money they bring in, the model is still very successful.
With USG they’ve gone from a bottom half of the table side to one that won the Belgian league title last season and currently sit at the top of the league. Some of their top performing players from last season came from leagues like the Croatian, Israeli, Argentine, Latvian and even Estonian top flights.
They received €69m this summer with some massive profits on their biggest sales;
Franjo Ivanovic - Bought for €4m sold for €22.80m
Noah Sadiki - Bought for €900k sold for €17m
Mohamed Amoura - Bought for €4m sold for €14.75m
That is what Jamestown can do and Hearts have signed some exciting players this summer with Claudio Braga and Alexandros Kyziridis probably being the biggest stand outs so far. Fans have recently bemoaned the decision to play Pierre Landry Kabore on the right of a 442, because he’s been poor there. However, given the chance to play through the middle he scored two in two but he was put back out to the right to accommodate Braga coming back in yesterday.
I don’t think the players have been great because of McInnes or his tactics, they’ve been great because that’s what they are capable of. There’s also been some criticism at a few of the Jamestown signings not receiving a lot of minutes but it’s for Hearts fans to decide if that’s a valid criticism.
Hearts have done superbly so far this season but how much credit does Derek McInnes actually deserve and how much does Jamestown Analytics take? More and more players will be recruited using this model going forward but is McInnes genuinely the right person to take them forward and develop these players?
I have my doubts.
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