HEARTS FC
TEAM GUIDE
Introduction
I saw a couple of other team guides that you guys have done, and thought I'd pitch in with an insight to Hearts FC! If you are thinking of giving them a try, maybe there is a few helpful pointers in the information below.This is my first ever guide, so your thanks if you felt like giving them, or indeed any comments that would be helpful to me making future guides would be most appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to look, and happy managing!
Team information
Nation: Scotland
Year Founded: 1874
Status: Professional
Reputation: National
Chairman Status: Loves The Club
Favoured Personnel: Steven Pressley, Paul Hartley, Neil McCann, Craig Levein
Fierce Rivals:Hibernian
Other Rivals: None
Finances: Okay
Estimated Value: £21M (Loan debt of £29M)
Stadium: Tynecastle Satdium, Edinburgh
Stadium Capacity: 17402 All seater with undersoil heating
Training Facilities: Top training facilities
Youth Facilities: Good facilities + Youth Academy
Continental Competition: None at season 2007/08
Media Prediction: 4th
Average age of Squad: 23
Squad Personality: Very Determined
Captain: Christophe Berra
Vice Captain: Robbie Neilson
Star Players: Christophe Berra, Laraya Kingston
Rising Stars: Branimir Kostadinov, Ryan Wallace
Chairman: Vladimir Romanov
Your Expectations: Gain entry to European competition
Finances: £2.6 million
Transfer Budgets: Minimum expectation £1.8m, Title Challenge £2.6m,
Title Winner £3.0m
Balance: £3Million approx
Wage Salary: £66k
KEY PLAYERS
As with most teams, there are alot of peripheral players not worth a mention, so I've singled out the best ones!
GoalKeepers:
Steve Banks: 35 at start of game, the former Gillingham goalkeeper is the best available on the books at. Good reflexes but command of area was lacking.
Anthony Basso: I found him to be weak, prone to let in stupid goals, and
sometimes found wandering out of his area. Best suited to being transfer listed straight away, I stuck with him, and it might have already cost me the league title.
DEFENDERS:
Christophe Berra: At 22 this rising talent is the recommended captain of Hearts at the start of the game. Composed and commanding this DC is the rock of the defence.
Robbie Neilson: Vice captain of the club and first choice at RB another leader in the making Neilson is a good tackler with great positioning.
Ibrahim Tall: Another strong candidate for regular first teamfootball DC Tall is technically not bad,though prone to missing cruicial interceptions and exposing his goalkeeper at times. Always seem to play up for the big games.
Jose Concalves: Portuguese hardman of the team, good for roughing up opposition strikers, and doesn't get booked too often. Unfortunately he was sold by my chairman for £4m halfway through the season. Make sure you sort his value out, he is worth twice that! DLC
Lee Wallace: Up and coming young LB later sold to Blackburn for 1.2million
Christos Karypidis: Firstly used as backup to Neilson, his form seems to fluctuate. Seems prone to nerves before big games.
MIDFIELDERS:
Laraya Kingston: Excellent MC good passer, good attributes, does come across as a little lazy and then BOOM! Will fire one from 30yards into the top corner out of nowhere. Another to tie to the club with a high asking price.
Bruno Aguiar: Kingstons partner in crime, this MC is on loan from FBK. His stats aren't impressive, but he seems a solid player, and rarely gets caught out.
Deividas Cesnauskis: AML The undoubted cream of the Loaned in players from FBK (And there are a lot of them!) finished half the season with 8 assists and 9 goals.I Signed him for real on a free when his contract expired in January 2008. Quality player.
K.Ivaskevicius: Another loanee, with good stats, though was pushed to one side when Aaritalo arrived. Eventually I sent him home!
Micheal Stewart: One of the few true Scots in the side, very competent player at MC, though was plagued by injury early on in the season. In my game famously netted a 30 yd curling shot past Artur Boruc at Celtic Park.
FORWARDS:
Christian Nade: Good solid french striker scored 5 goals though appearances were limited because of Fernandez's lethal form.
Mauricio Pinilla: Starts the game injured, and because of that lost his place to Al-Qahtani early on. Does well as an out and out striker operating on his own, and would make a good target man.
Michal Popisil: Czech striker, with good composure and finishing, appalling positional sense and no pace whatsoever. Eventually sold to NEC for £1.8million.
Andrius Velicka: Yet another Lithuanian on loan from Kaunas, seemed to do very well until he broke his leg in a game against Motherwell. 4 goals in 9 games then out for season meant I still don't know if he was any good!
Tactics: Keep it simple, as some of the players don't seem too bright. I opted for a 4-4-2 for both home and away games, and trimmed the settings to attack or defend depending on the stature of the opponent which worked quite well.
Recommended Buys: Alex Fernandez, Mika Aaritalo, Piotr Czaplinski, Gabriel Torje, Steven Pressley, Andrew Cave-Brown all came in and doing really well for me in my first season.
Summary: I would say playing as Hearts is quite rewarding. Given that Rangers and Celtic seem to have it all their own way in the SPL, it is certainly a challenge to topple the big two, but on your side is that they do have some really bad games, my favourite of this season a 4-3 loss at Ibrox for Rangers against ICT!
But ultimately although points are there for the taking from the weaker sides, Hearts do have some really awful weak spots, namely in goal and also a lack of firepower up front. This can be frustrating when you eek out a 1-0 against Celtic only to be beaten at home 3-0 by kilmarnock.
If you take this challenge up then a decent keeper and good striker should be your main areas of concern.
Also I sacked the assistant manager straight away opting to bring in scotland assistant manager Andy Watson, who is terrific, and trimmed off most of the "Deadwood" of the Lithuanian players, opting to bring in my own targets instead. I kept Deividas Cesnauskis, later signing him on a free, and signed Marius Zaliukas on a permanent for 250k, the rest of the FBK players I sent home.
Key signings for me were Yasser Al-Qahtani from KSA £3.3million, Olivier Tebily from Birmingham for 300k, 400k for Mika Aaritalo (Turun) and 325K for Gabriel Torje from Poli 1921. Alex Fernandez currently is leading scorer with 26 goals in all comps, free from Coslada. I also bought Andrew Cave-Brown, and Piotr Czaplinski for future prospects.
Thank you for taking the time to read this guide!
