Andrew McKinlay offers grovelling Hearts apology after top six failure (2025)

McKinlay had predicted that Hearts would still go onto challenge for a European qualification spot

Hearts chief Andrew McKinlay has apologised to fans for failing to make the top six - and admits he’s left himself open to ridicule.

The Tynecastle supremo insists a bottom half finish is “well below expectations” as he took his share of responsibility for the flop.

Hearts bulleted Steven Naismith following a woeful start to the season that saw them take two points from the first eight games. At that stage McKinlay said he was still confident of making the top six and challenging for Europe.

Neil Critchley was appointed and dragged the side into the top half of the table with three games to go. The boss himself has defended his record and said 38 points from his 25 games was top six form.

But defeats to Celtic and Dundee United followed by Saturday’s dismal draw at Motherwell saw them drop back out - with St Mirren leapfrogging them into sixth spot.

And McKinlay said: “Like everyone else I'm absolutely gutted, there's no way to sugarcoat it and I think it's really important that I apologise to the fans.

“It’s well below their expectations and it's well below our expectations as a club to be in the bottom six.

“We all know we had a dreadful start to the season but we we all believed that we'd picked up and we all believed and it looked like we were going to make it into the top six and then we could look at Europe after that.

“I was ridiculed by some for saying I was confident that we would make the top six and okay they could just ridicule me now if they feel that that's appropriate.

“But I was confident and, you know, two games out we had it clearly in our hands.

“I think anyone a week ago Saturday after the results for St Mirren and Motherwell that weekend I think we were all really confident that we would make the top six.

“I don't think you'd find many people that weren’t. But we didn't so there there's no point in hiding behind that.

“As chief exec I take my share of the responsibility for that and we have to knuckle down now and make sure that we don't have a repeat of that in the future.

“I apologise unreservedly for for where we find ourselves as I said it's not acceptable from from our perspective.”

Hearts face Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup semi final on Saturday - a last chance to make Europe should they go on and lift the trophy. But no matter what the outcome, McKinlay says Critchley’s summer transfer budget is set.

The link-up with Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics is already in full force, the manager himself was identified using the tool while five January signings, Elton Kabangu, Michael Steinwender, Jamie McCart, Sander Kartum and Harry Milne also came through the system.

And McKinlay said: “We’ve already made our plans for the summer and what happened at the weekend shouldn't shouldn't change that at all.

“We have plans in place around making sure we've got appropriate monies to do what we want to do to fully utilise the tools that we now have available to us to bring in players that will will take us to where we believe we should be as a club.

“We brought in five Jamestown players in January and while some of them have had difficult games and good games I think probably most people would look at those five with one exception hasn't really had an opportunity.

“But certainly the other four who have had opportunities I would certainly say that they have improved the team and they are good players.

“It hopefully shows fans the sort of players that we can bring in through the Jamestown model. We’ve got another one actually which is almost there as well to announce and we've got another few irons in the fire.

“We’re well aware that we do need to make some significant changes is there's obviously people leaving the club at the end of the season and there's some that will come to the end of their contracts and partly that will dictate how many we then bring in. But yeah I would expect some significant change.”