Hearts’ Stuart Findlay admits regret with a brutally honest assessment as he looks to atone at Tynecastle
Hearts’ Stuart Findlay admits regret with a brutally honest assessment as he looks to atone at Tynecastle.
Stuart Findlay appears to enjoy the familiarity of his new life at Hearts with a manager he knows well.
Derek McInnes didn’t hesitate to bring his former Kilmarnock loanee to Edinburgh after taking over at Tynecastle Park. Both are aware of how well they work together, how much they trust and believe in one another.
This season, hearts will benefit from a mutually beneficial relationship. Findlay became a mainstay of McInnes’ Kilmarnock defence in 2023 and 2024, and he will now start the new Scottish Premiership season as a Hearts centre-back.
Aberdeen travel to Tynecastle on Monday evening to begin a new league season, which is eagerly anticipated in Gorgie.
Findlay is one of seven new arrivals, with more on the way, and the 29-year-old is eager to get started. He is on loan from Oxford United until next summer, but it would be a huge surprise if he does not sign a permanent contract. He is a man McInnes trusts and who is eager to seize the opportunity at Hearts.
A previous move to MLS club Philadelphia Union fell through after he turned down the advances of former Tynecastle manager Robbie Neilson.
Findlay is not in Oxford’s plans either, and he believes that working with McInnes will help him achieve peak performance. Online Betting
“Yeah, it’s absolutely massive for me,” he announced. “Over the last few years, I’ve made a few big moves to America, followed by my move to Oxford.
I’ll be the first to admit that both times, I probably didn’t perform as well as I could have. That’s me being completely honest. So, coming to a new club like Hearts, there are so many demands on the club, and having a manager in your corner who has backed you for two years and shown he believes in you, I think it was always going to be a benefit.
“Hopefully, in the games I’ve played, I’ve shown him that I’m here to do a job and that I’m prepared to perform for him. I don’t think you realise how big a club Hearts is until you join it.
When you visit Tynecastle once or twice a season, you can see how passionate the fans are, as evidenced by the large crowds for Craigie’s [Gordon] testimonial. Not only that, but the expectation of success at a club like Hearts is something I’m very excited to be a part of.
When the manager spoke to me, we were both wanting to come here because we both knew what success looked like at Hearts. It’s something that we both aligned ourselves with.
So we’re going to have to back it up and make sure we put in the performances to reach the ambitions.
“With the size of the club, yeah, I maybe underestimated it slightly. Now that I’m here, I couldn’t be any happier to realise what this club can be and what this club I think can achieve. I’m determined to be a part of it. Anybody that’s played under him will tell you, the manager deals a lot in trust. He gets players that he knows he can trust.
I think he’s got a changing room just now full of boys that he knows are going to give him everything. I think he has come into a changing room which is going to suit his style of management.
“You have boys you can put on the park; they don’t need to be walked through the game. They can complete the necessary tasks as long as we receive prior instructions, which the manager will undoubtedly provide.
For the past two years, he has put me out there, and I know he believes in me. I believe this has contributed to our strong relationship. It’s something I was really looking forward to continuing, and I’m grateful that I’m here and have the opportunity to do so.”
The results would indicate that the relationship is off to a promising start. Hearts won four of their four Premier Sports Cup group stage games before defeating Sunderland 3-0 in Gordon’s testimonial.
They have not conceded a goal with Findlay on the pitch. The decision to once again hang his hat on McInnes appears to be sound.
“I’ll be the first to admit that when I had the opportunity to leave Oxford on loan and return to Kilmarnock, I didn’t have many options. “I’ll be completely honest with you,” the defender stated. “When Derek McInnes came in for me at Kilmarnock, he was a manager whom I obviously admired greatly, and the club meant a lot to me.
It worked at the time, and I believe that for him to take me from where I was two years ago to where I was at the end of his tenure at Kilmarnock, it would be insane for me not to want to continue that working relationship.
“He is a manager who understands my skill set and knows how to get the most out of me, and as I previously stated, the opportunity to work with him again was something I couldn’t pass up. Not only that, but coming to a club of Hearts’ stature, as I previously stated, was unexpected.
I had the opportunity a few years ago before moving to America, but now that I’m here and know what the club is all about, I’m thrilled to have another chance. I believe that having an extra four or five years of experience will benefit both me and the club from that.
“I don’t think it was a secret back then; I believe Robbie Neilson was the manager, and I was very close to joining Hearts.” At the time, the opportunity in America was too good to pass up. It was a huge opportunity that may not have worked out football-wise as I had hoped, but it is not something I regret.
“It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, so I had to pursue it at the time.” As I previously stated, there is always that gnawing feeling in the back of your mind of ‘what could have happened if I went elsewhere?’ To be able to come here, I think as a better player to what I was back then, with a manager who fully knows what I’m about, it can only be a positive for me.”Findlay regrets his situation at parent club Oxford, where he is out of the picture despite having a year left on his contract.
A permanent move to Hearts appears unavoidable, and the player is brutally honest about his future there. “It’s a bit of a strange situation that I’ve got with Oxford,” he told me.
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