If Ann doesn't Budge and Craig Levein is the future, where does that leave Hearts?

A visit to Tynecastle wouldn’t be complete without an aftertaste as sour as the expression on Jambos boss Craig Levein’s face.

As charismatic as an irritable bowel syndrome diagnosis with the charm of a blocked drain, even the scientists at the Met Office couldn’t find an atmosphere in Levein’s vicinity.

While he may have been forced to retire from playing by a knee injury but it’s the incurable chip on his shoulder – especially where Celtic are concerned – that seems to define Levein the manager, as far as he can be described as one.

One of these men represents the future of Scottish football

How he found his way into that post is as much an indictment on him and his club as his conduct in the post has been. Having been Director of Football during Ian Cathro’s short-lived reign, presumably he would have been the person both directly responsible for the appointment and the man who would be his Head Coach’s most strident defender.

Instead, he seemed to have foisted on Cathro players who couldn’t play the style of game favoured by a coach with Valencia and Newcastle on his CV and taken to visiting the dressing room at half-time.

The writing was already scrawled on the Gorgie boardroom wall before Cathro got there. Levein, like many a manager before him was desperate to get back into the front line and the qualified but meek Cathro was the patsy, set up to fail, as Levein’s ticket back to the dugout.

Levein described it as “logical” that he should replace the man he had so clearly failed, betraying the fact that this was no impromptu matter of racing to his club’s aid in its hour of need. No, this was a pre-meditated mugging.

Logical to have stepped in on an interim basis, it could have been. Fitting his own comfort cushion to the manager’s seat for the long term would have baffled less substantial football figures than Hearts’ saviour, Ann Budge.

But with such glee as Levein could summon from his bottomless pit of internal gloom, he rubbed his hands (at least) and settled into the job that he had so conspicuously shafted his (conveniently friendless in the Scottish media) Head Coach out of.

And what exactly were Hearts fans getting? A playing “legend” once banned for 12 matches for injuring his own teammate in a friendly, and who was afflicted with a dose of the heebie-jeebies when his team actually had a chance of winning something on the first Feast of Albert Kidd.

A manager whose greatest success had been third place in the Scottish Premier League and who had once brought a discouraged Tartan Army to full despair by fielding the first 4-6-0 formation in the national team’s recorded history.

That could have been described as the reductio ad absurdum of Levein – the point of negativity beyond which it was impossible to go.

So what do Hearts have now? A Chief Executive in Budge who the media laud at every turn for her no-nonsense professionalism and vision. They have a partially-modernised stadium with a stand rebuilt at considerable cost. They have an upcoming million-pound, hi-tech hybrid pitch of the sort that should allow modern, progressive football.

And they have Craig Levein – the most regressive manager in Scotland – who, given time, will negate the effects of all three of those assets.

He will negate any positive impact Budge may have as he is incapable of producing an improved football product on the pitch.

Hearts, today, lie sixth in the table but far closer to eighth than to fifth place.

This is despite Levein having been in charge of player recruitment since 2014, the same year Edinburgh rivals Hibs were relegated to what is now the Championship. Currently, Hibs are 20 points clear of the Jambos with a goal difference that is superior to Hearts (on zero) by 17 goals.

And that, will very soon see that big stand that Hearts so proudly unveiled Scotland’s biggest architectural folly. Because even Jambos will struggle to stomach more of the rancid gruel that Levein serves up to the paying public.

As for the pitch, the negativity of Levein knows no bounds. On his instructions, the ground staff apparently neither cut nor water the pitch on match days, making it unsuitable for its intended purpose of playing football. (That probably accounts for the fact that 28 of their 46 points have been won at home.)

To be fair to Levein, that may be down to old-fashioned canniness and maybe he was brought up in one of those households that has an expensively-furnished lounge in which no one was allowed to sit, lest they risk spoiling the carpet or couch.

But a better analogy may be the office manager who refuses to unpack the latest computers supplied by Head Office because he doesn’t know how to use them but suspects that his staff do.

So, what do Hearts have to show for all this? A manager who plays to the Gorgie gallery by setting up his team to attack Celtic players – a guaranteed crowd-pleaser – and who makes snide remarks about Hibs and Celtic in the press.

His managerial win record with Hearts, though, is 36.11%. That’s better than Cathro’s but considerably worse than Neil Lennon’s record with Hibs at 52.2% (50% this season in the league).

Hapless Graeme Murty finished with a record of 62.07% for the current season.

While Levein made some fans and hacks happy with his idiotic jibes about Celtic and Brendan Rodgers “moaning”, “bleating”, “froth” and “fury”, he also insisted that he expected that £1m on the pitch to be scorned next season: “We’ll just let it grow.”

There spoke a man with a complacency that his record in management has done nothing to justify and Budge was surely taking note.

A modern stadium and modern pitch logically implies the requirement for a modern team, a modern manager and a modern Director of Football.

It’s difficult to see where yesterday’s bam Levein would fit in that scenario.

Swooping for Neil Lennon is out of the question. The far more adept Murty would probably carry too much negative press coverage.
Surely, she wouldn’t go for Steve Clarke at Kilmarnock (win record this season – 51.6%) and, with Levein back as Director of Football, Clarke would seem unlikely to be willing to consider going to Tynecastle.

Robbie Neilson is a progressive coach, with a record of success at Hearts, who is out of work but would be unlikely to agree to work with Levein.

This summer looks to be a test for Budge and just how ambitious she really is for Hearts. If she has a plan to make progress and involve Craig Levein at the same time, then she won’t just be a svaiour but a magician.

Of course, she could just sack Levein, send him packing with a gold-plated watch and bring in someone to take the club forward.

If that happens, stand back and listen. There may be much bleating and moaning.

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