Frankie McAvoy demands Hearts do their talking ON the park and shut down management structure questions with wins

Frankie McAvoy knows there’s only one way to stop questions about the managerial set up at Hearts and that’s by winning games.

Much has been made of the Jambos naming McAvoy as head coach and Steven Naismith as technical director following Robbie Neilson's sacking last season. The pair are working in tandem, along with first team coach Gordon Forrest, to try and guide the capital club to third place in the Premiership after last season’s collapse.

But McAvoy insists job titles off the park don’t matter if you;re getting results on it. And he plans to quiet the external noise by beating St Johnstone in Saturday's season opener. Listen, I have no control of what people say or what people write or what people do,” he said. “The only thing I can say is that we worked really well together last season as a team, Gordy, Naisy, myself and Gally (Paul Gallacher) as the goalkeeping coach.

‘We have got good dynamics. We know how we want to play. Our structure is best in the six moments of the game — in possession, out of possession, defending transitions, attacking transitions, set plays and game management. We work closely together on how we want to deliver coaching sessions and I think we worked well when Naisy came in. We’ve done the exact same.

“The difference now is when we go to pick the team, if there is any differences between us, I will make that final decision. It’s as simple as that. The players are aware of it, the staff are aware of it.

“The club put this out a few months ago and people keep asking us what the dynamics are like. The dynamics are good but time will tell because I’m not naive enough to sit here and not know the most important thing is winning games.

“We need to win games. That’s crucial. The players are