Updated: 18 May 2026 11:03 BST |
5 min read
Hearts got lucky this season. Owner Tony Bloom, as Scottish football’s premier numbers guy, will appreciate that.
Forget the refereeing controversy, forget the chronic injury issues they suffered throughout the season and, most especially, forget the ugly scenes at Parkhead as the Jambos’ title challenge ended with the last kick of the season against Celtic. Little of this will come into Bloom’s cold-blooded analysis.
An expert football club builder, as previously demonstrated at Brighton in the Premier League and Union SG in Belgium, the former professional gambler will be most interested in what the statistics say about Hearts’ campaign.
The standings showed that they finished two points behind Celtic, but the analysis will show that they were not as close to the eventual champions as that might suggest. Sometimes the table does lie. Bloom has made it his business to appreciate when it does and what he can learn from it.
WyScout’s analysis shows that in terms of expected points, Celtic finished on 73.9, clear of Hearts on 67. Rangers even outperformed the Jambos in this regard, albeit only barely as they mustered 67.2.
Bloom’s analysis, driven by his company Jamestown Analytics, will throw up different numbers, but they will show the same thing: the gulf between Celtic and Hearts was greater than the league standings showed.
If that sounds like an immensely negative spin on what was perhaps the most captivating domestic campaign of any top-flight club across Europe, you’d be right. But this is the type of clinical observation that Hearts’ owner has made a career of appreciating and acting on.
Bloom targeting the title
So where does this leave the Jambos ahead of next term? Can we expect another serious Premiership challenge from the Edinburgh side?
Their owner certainly will.
“If we have not won the league title in the next 10 years, I will be very disappointed,” Bloom told Sky Sports all the way back in August – before a ball had even been kicked in the Premiership.
“I think Hearts will have an excellent season. I think we can, even from this season, challenge for every tournament that we’re in.”
These comments were deemed worthy of mockery at the time. No one’s laughing now. Particularly not Celtic, whose long-term monopoly suddenly seems under threat, not from the down the road at Ibrox, but from along the M8 in the capital.
‘This was only the beginning’
Running Celtic so close again will be difficult, though. The underlying metrics heavily favoured the Hoops this season. They, like Rangers, will surely not be as poor next term. There will be no Wilfried Nancy spell, for a start.
But as Hearts winger Alexandros Kyziridis said on Instagram: “I promise you, this was only the beginning.”
And indeed it is. Bloom’s arrival is a game-changer. While Hearts do not have the type of finances open to either of their Glasgow rivals, what they do have is a recruitment cell that can take chunks out of the archaic strategies employed by their primary rivals.
With Jamestown Analytics’ expertise, Bloom will be confident that in the type of market that Scottish clubs operate in, there are exponential gains to be made by smart signings.
🎶 “All we hear is… Cláudio Braga!”
Hearts fans in full voice at Tannadice 🔊 pic.twitter.com/AJZO570uTo
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) January 31, 2026
Anyone dismissing this notion needs only look at the success of their business this season. Claudio Braga, Scotland’s Player of the Season, was signed for just £500,000, while other key figures such as Christian Borchgrevink, Kyziridis and Oisin McEntee were all picked up on free transfers.
Not everything was perfect, of course: record signing Ageu barely played due to persistent injuries, while the January arrivals (save Marc Leonard), might have provided more impetus. They have time, though.
There has been more than enough to suggest that this project can be a successful one.
“This might be the worst Hearts team you will see in the next 10 years,” former Hearts midfielder Allan Preston predicted on BBC Scotland.
Already former Rangers and Stirling Albion winger Josh McPake has been snapped up by the Jambos side. Midfielder Tom Renaud has been heavily tipped to arrive from French third-tier side Versailles. Forget the relatively modest club Renaud plays with, Bloom has made such signings his speciality.
First Scotland, next Europe
And the owner is aiming high with Hearts now in the second qualifying phase of the Champions League.
“Hearts will be a force and when we get into Europe we’ll be winning games and we will help lift that coefficient,” Bloom said last August.
Given how accurate he has been with his other predictions, this is a warning shot to potential opponents Fenerbahce, Bodo/Glimt and Olympiacos.
League success would have propelled Hearts’ project forward at a supersonic speed. That opportunity has been missed, but the Edinburgh side will, nevertheless, be a threat for years to come domestically.
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