Neil Critchley has strongly denied that he is a 3-5-2 manager and says he will pick a formation that suits the squad of players he has at Hearts.
The Jambos appointed the former Blackpool and QPR manager as their new boss to replace Steven Naismith in the dugout at Tynecastle.
He’s only had a few days to get his feet under the table in Gorgie and prepare for a massive match against St Mirren as Premiership action returns on Saturday.
Hearts fans are generally underwhelmed by the arrival of Critchley but he’ll try and get them on side with a victory against the Buddies.
BBC Sportsound spoke to Critchley before the clash at Tynecastle with reporter Brian McLaughlin bringing up the topic of what formation he likes to use.
McLaughlin claimed there had been a lot of speculation that Critchley is a manager who prefers to play 3-5-2 over any other formation.
Hearts boss Critchley on ‘nonsense’ formation talk
But the Jambos boss bit back quickly. He said: “No, that’s nonsense. Well if you look at my first period at Blackpool, I played 4-3-3 and 4-4-2 and I played 4-2-3-1 at QPR.
“I pick the formation of the team that suits the players. I’m a coach where you’ve got to get the best out of the players at your disposal.
“So it would be foolish of me looking at the squad that we’ve got and playing without wide players. I don’t think that would make any sense whatsoever.”
Critchley excited about analytics at Hearts
Also asked if the emergence of using data analytics at Hearts excites him, Critchley replied: “Yes, it does. I’ve had experience with it before, probably not to the extent that it will be here.
“But I think that you have to be open-minded. It’s not the be all and end all, we all know that. It plays a big part but also you have to use your eyes and experience.
“It doesn’t tell you about the character of the players either. We’ll have a process (in terms of recruitment) and it is a process that we’ll refine and improve.
“And the analytics is going to give us an edge over time.”