My Hearts Career

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Ice Man

17 years ago

2 days ago

428

05 Nov 2013 21:10:52

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Season Review 2013/14
League Table - Finances - Staff - Awards - Transfers - Squad

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Well that brings to an end my first season and it has been a fantastic start to my Hearts career. Before the season I just wanted to make sure that we would avoid relegation. We climbed out of the bottom and out of the relegation zone by January and never looked back finishing an impressive 8th.

Throughout the season we were able to go on little undefeated runs that would always last 6 games. They came at great times as well. The first came as we were removing our 15 point deduction and getting into positive numbers. The second was as we got out of the relegation places and the third run was at the end of the season when we were trying to finish above Hibs.

While avoiding relegation is fantastic and instrumental to this club the best part of the season was winning the League Cup. We fought of Brechin in the first round and then proceeded to beat arch rivals Hibs, knock out Ross County and Aberdeen where we would play Motherwell who thankfully beat Celtic in the other semi-final. The final was a bit of a anti-climax for the neutrals as two early goals put the game beyond Motherwell. The game was confirmed with a third goal late on queue the celebrations.

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Player of the Year - Callum Paterson
Top Goalscorer - Callum Paterson
Best Youngster - Jamie Walker
Most Improved - Kevin McHattie
Most Valuable Player - Danny Wilson

Callum Paterson was the stand out player for me this season. I had to start out by playing him out of position up front but he never looked back. He ended up our top Goalscorer with 15 goals and also topped the assists charts with a whopping 17. Notable mentions also have to go to Jamie Walker and Danny Wilson who were fantastic throughout. In terms of after January when the transfer embargo was finally lifted then it would have to be the loan signing of Federico Macheda. He scored 8 in 14 which I thought would have been higher but I am more than happy with his contribution.

In terms of transfers then this season has definitely been a struggle although I firmly believe that it has helped the club in some ways. The club was in administration until September 1st so up until that point I was powerless to teams coming in and getting our better players. Up until that point we lost 4 of our better midfielders and were being forced to play 19/20 year olds. As it turned out it worked really well for us and because of this those players have become better and are now being sort after from some of England’s bigger teams.

When January 31st came around we got the best news which was the transfer embargo was over and I had transfer deadline day to bring in players that could help improve our team. After doing some business with Newcastle (they bought Callum Paterson for £3.5m (couldn’t refuse that money) and then loaned him back to us for the rest of the season) we were in a good position to offer players money. After trying but failing to bring in Craig Mackail-Smith on loan we were looking down the barrel for a striker but thankfully I managed to bring in Will Grigg and Federico Macheda. Also coming in were young right back Ryan McLaughlin from Liverpool and centre midfielder Ben Pearson from Manchester United.

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2014/2015 Season Plans

I haven’t been given my transfer budget yet for the coming season but I as very sure that it will mostly go into the wages column and as long as I can adjust the money if I need to then I will be very happy.

I am hopeful that I can convince Callum Paterson to re-join us on loan again from Newcastle although this time we will have to pay 50% of his wages which isn’t a problem as it will be less than what he was on while he was actually our player! Federico Macheda will not be joining us permanently. Unfortunately he doesn’t think that this club can take him where he should be at but we will wait and see. We have however agreed to sign Manu Molina a promising young Spanish midfielder from Valencia on a free transfer. I firmly believe that this kid can dominate this league as long as we are able to keep him here.

The target for the season ahead will again be to finish in the top half of the table and possibly even qualify for Europe through our league position. I would love to defend our League Cup and hopefully if we can avoid getting Celtic then I am confident that we can do so. It would be also nice to get into the later rounds of the Scottish Cup but again it is very draw dependent.