How Tony Bloom's secret weapon will pick next Hearts manager - 'Starlizard' recruitment approach explained

It's new manager time again at Hearts, which seemed inevitable given their wretched start to the season.

Steven Naismith's coat was on the shoogliest of pegs after losing eight straight and it finally fell to the floor on Sunday afternoon as the Jambos asked him to clear out his locker. Coaches Frankie McAvoy and Gordon Forrest followed him out the door and now the search begins for his successor.

Liam Fox has been placed in temporary charge in the meantime with Lee Wallace and Angus Beith at his side. Already, the bookies' lists have emerged, full of the usual suspects with one or two more interesting names sprinkled in, as well as some absolute non starters that always seem to get a price regardless of their chances.

But there are things afoot in the background at Tynecastle that could make this recruitment drive a bit different. Brighton owner Tony Bloom is in talks over an investment deal that would see him pump £10million into the Gorgie club, and it's now being reported by the Daily Mail that it will be Bloom's company Jamestown Analytics leading the hunt for a new manager. Perhaps more crucially, the investment will also give them access to his much vaunted but not widely understood recruitment algorithms.

A poker player turned billionaire, Bloom is a gambler at heart, but he does his research in a bid to win big. There's no better illustration of that than Brighton's player trading model. The Seagulls have raked in hundreds of millions in transfer fees after forking out a relative pittance on targets identified using his analytics companies Starlizard and Jamestown Analytics.

The Daily Mail say it will be the latter company leading the recruitment drive for the new boss but it's all based around the same model