“My type of appointment and thinking is different,” Celtic and Rangers gap is NOT insurmountable, says Neil Critchley as new Hearts manager outlines what he will do to bridge the gap

The new man in charge understands that the immediate goal is to get off the bottom of the table, but is looking beyond the here and now.

Neil Critchley has witnessed Celtic and Rangers dominate Scottish football for the last four decades.

But the new Hearts manager feels that the distance between the Old Firm and the others is not insurmountable. The Englishman will take command of his first game as Jambos manager tomorrow against St Mirren, and he believes a new style of thinking, along with a partnership with Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics, will provide an opportunity to overcome the gap to the top two. With Critchley’s priority right now being to get their first win of the Premiership season, on the board at the ninth time of trying tomorrow.

However, he understands that in the long run, the targets will be at the top of the table rather than at the bottom. Last season, the Jambos finished best of the rest, but were still 17 points behind Rangers in second place and 25 points behind champions Celtic. Critchley added: “There’s always something to whet your appetite. Everyone understands that the top two are dominant. They have been for some years.

“But, at some point, why can’t that gap be bridged? It’s not insurmountable. To do that, though, you have to think differently first. So maybe this is a different type of appointment. I think that shows you maybe the direction the club wants to go into. And with a different type of thinking and what we might be able to achieve in terms of recruitment then who knows what might happen in the future?”

Next Thursday’s Conference League match at home to Omonia Nicosia is sandwiched between tomorrow’s dugout debut at Tynecastle and a travel across Edinburgh for the season’s first derby eight days after that. It will be Critchley’s European debut. But, having been given the keys with three points already on the Euro board, he is hoping to go to the knockout stages.

The former Liverpool academy coach said: “At Liverpool we played in the UEFA Youth League which was an Under-19 tournament all over Europe and I know this is on a different scale, but playing in Europe is different. Whether that’s the interpretation of the rules from the referees or the opposition that you play against and from watching the first game the week before, it’s a different type of game.

“We had a good first win and our aim is to try and progress out of there, to get as far as we can in this competition. We played 59 games (at Blackpool) last season so I’m used to preparing, recovering, preparing, how to manage the squad during the course of the season.