Hearts already have the Jamestown Analytics laptop and now they’re set to double it up with the Del desktop. For me, the club have at long last made the right decision by appointing Derek McInnes. I was calling for the Killie boss to get the gig last year before they gave it to Steven Naismith and said the same when they went for Neil Critchley. Now they’ve finally done the right thing by getting in a manager with the required bandwidth for the job. It’s been a year to forget for the Hearts fans but there’s plenty to be excited about going forward now that Tony Bloom is preparing to input his £10million investment. His data-driven recruitment system has worked wonders at Brighton and European clubs like Union Saint-Gilloise and Como. The Tynecastle faithful are hoping they will be next to benefit but my one advice to Bloom, Ann Budge and Andrew McKinlay is to make sure that McInnes is the man entrusted with pushing the button on any ins and outs going forward. Yes the Jamestown model has been a major success elsewhere but for me, Del’s football brain outstrips any algorithm a computer can come up with. Having splashed out to get him out of Rugby Park, they need to fully back him and that means trusting his decision making. I totally get that the days of one man running a football club top to bottom are long gone. But Derek has proved the depth of his football knowledge time and time again while doing a terrific job at St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Killie. Just look at where he took each of the clubs. Saints were in the Championship when Derek got his shot and he was the man who put down the foundations to what would become a 15-year run in the top flight that is only now falling apart. He delivered Aberdeen’s first trophy in a generation and having axed him unfairly, it’s taken them four years to recover. His first game in charge of Kilmarnock back in January 2022 was a Championship trip away to Queen of the South - two and a half years later he had them back playing in Europe. Considering those kinds of achievements, I find it hard to understand the comments I’ve read from some Hearts fans who are suggesting Derek is simply coming in to steady the ship. Far from it, I truly expect he’ll have ambitions of taking the club back to where they were last season, challenging for third and a place in Europe. That’s where he had Aberdeen consistently during his eight-year stay at Pittodrie. OK, Kilmarnock couldn’t back up their fifth-place finish last season having missed out on the top six this term. But he didn’t have the budget the bigger clubs had to work with and was forced to do a great deal of the recruitment work himself. That’s why I’m excited to see how McInnes gets on working with the Jamestown team. If he can be freed up from having to do the running around trying to find players, I reckon you’ll see him make even better use of his time on the training ground. And I expect to see him get the best out of Lawrence Shankland. I know how good a motivator he is from experience. Del tried to sign me a couple of times when I was playing. The first time was when I was at Ayr and he was in charge of St Johnstone. I’d scored against his team a few weeks before. As we were walking back to the half-way line he turned to me and said: “Don’t stay here too long.” It was his way of telling me I was too good for that level. I walked away from the game that day feeling 10ft tall. He wanted to take me back to St Johnstone but in the end I couldn’t say no to Hearts. And you know what, he was raging. He took it personally that I’d knocked him back. He didn’t speak to me for ages but I loved that about him, that it was personal. It shows how much he cares and you’ll see that in the way he goes about dealing with Shankland. The Killie fans obviously aren’t happy about his decision to leave and Derek has made the sensible decision to sit out today’s game between the teams. But from a Hearts point of view, it means he can get down to work right away and I fully expect his first conversation will be with the skipper in an attempt to finally get Lawrence to agree to that new deal. Like the rest of the squad, the captain won’t look back on the past 12 months with much fondness but he’s shown with his five goals in these past four games that he still has plenty to offer. Liam Fox has done exactly the right thing putting him back up top and it’s getting the best out of Shankland. Hopefully he’ll log back in for another go under Del next season.