Hearts close in on their new manager – but will Wouter Vrancken be the man to take the challenge to Celtic?

Well, well, well…

Stop the bus.

Hearts have found their man.

Wouter Vrancken. Near as makes no difference a done deal, with the appointment pencilled in for this week.

This very morning I sat here filling the void, didn’t I.

Ranting into the void. Reduced to humming The Sound of Silence, because there was nothing – literally nothing – happening at our place worth talking about.

And by the time the kettle had boiled, the Gorgie men had gone and landed a manager.

I told you a week ago their recruitment process was beating the hell out of Dermot Desmond’s.

I didn’t think they’d prove me right quite this fast.

Let me get this straight.

Derek “Siege Mentality” McInnes – Del boy himself – downs tools and waltzes off to the Ibrox side.

And before the door has stopped swinging, Hearts have run the numbers, drawn up the list, done the interviews, and all but got the new gaffer’s signature on the dotted line.

That’s the supercomputer for you.

Tony Bloom’s Jamestown machine looked at a vacancy, scoured the planet for win percentages and a clear footballing philosophy, and spat out a name.

Meanwhile, at Celtic Park??

Are we even awake??

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…

A Belgian nobody had heard of – and that’s the whole point

Now, hands up.

A fortnight ago, could you have picked Wouter Vrancken out of a line-up?

Me neither.

KV Mechelen. Genk. A Belgian Cup on the CV, a side that plays on the front foot, a manager the data flagged long before the rest of us had a scooby who he was.

And that is the bit that should keep Silent Mike awake at night.

Make no mistake about that.

Because Hearts didn’t reach for a name off the back of a beermat.

They didn’t re-hire the last fella because the music stopped and somebody had to be sitting in the chair.

They went and found a candidate nobody else was even looking at.

That’s what a process gets you.

A process gets you ahead of the queue.

A process gets you the player – or the manager – before half the league has worked out his name.

We wouldn’t know.

We’ve never had one.

Oh wait… we have a fax machine.

Sorry, my mistake.

“The 12th man is the most important signing” – aye, fair enough

Frankie McAvoy was on hand to spell out the in-tray for the new man in the Record.

McAvoy, who soldiered as Steven Naismith’s assistant in Gorgie before he and Mark Hughes got their jotters at Carlisle, knows the place.

And here’s what he says the new boy has to do.

“First and foremost, whoever the new manager is they must believe that they can replicate what Derek’s done. They must get the fans behind them. Get off to a good start. Tynecastle, it’s like the O** F***, if you’re doing well at home these fans become a 12th man for you. It’s a hell of a place, a real fortress.”

A fortress.

He’s not wrong, you know.

This is the same lot who went unbeaten at home and led the title race until the 87th minute of the final day before they Heartsed it.

The same lot who were 3-0 down to Motherwell with 25 minutes left and somehow clawed their way back, because the 12th man wouldn’t let them die.

Whatever else you say about Hearts, they have an identity.

They have a place that means something on a Saturday.

They have a plan for what happens after McInnes that doesn’t involve waiting on an email approval from the puppet master golfer in Barbados.

Convenient, isn’t it??

And the signings never stopped

Here’s the part that really sticks in the craw.

Hearts have done all of this without a manager in the building.

Five in already, with Beerschot’s Sabri Guendouz closing fast on becoming arrival number six.

Malachi Fagan-Walcott – three quarters of a million quid from York City, a National League defender that raised a few eyebrows, flagged by the supercomputer, rated by everyone who’s seen him.

No manager, and they’ve still rebuilt half a squad.

Now read that back.

A club operating on a fraction of our budget has signed five players, a sixth on the way, and landed a manager in the time it’s taken our board to locate the meeting room.

F**k me.

Five in, a sixth incoming, and a gaffer.

And at our place?

Martin O’Neill re-upped for another year – the one bit of business we’ve managed, and only because the alternative was an empty dugout.

In?

Zero.

Zilch.

Nada.

It’s the arrivals bit that short-circuits the fax machine. It always was.

But is Vrancken actually any good?

Now, let’s be honest here.

I’m not going to sit and tell you Wouter Vrancken is the second coming.

He might be brilliant and he might be a bust.

He might get the Tynecastle crowd singing, or he might be gone by Christmas.

That’s the gamble, and it’s a real one.

A Belgian stepping into the Old Firm’s slipstream, into a fortress with a 66-year itch and a fanbase that has just tasted the title and had it ripped away at the death.

It is not a soft landing.

But here’s the thing.

At least they took the swing.

At least there’s a plan behind it, a model behind it, a reason for the name rather than a wheen of mates and ex-pros throwing darts at a board while the absent golfer gives the thumbs up via email from Barbados.

Get the appointment right, hand him a squad that’s already been reshaped before pre-season, and the Gorgie men could be a proper nuisance next year.

Not champions.

Let’s not get carried away.

But the kind of side that turns up at Celtic Park with no fear and takes points off everybody.

And we’d only have ourselves to blame for letting them get there first.

The bottom line is…

It tells you what it always tells you.

The gap between Celtic and Hearts has nothing to do with money.

We have more of that than they’ll ever dream of.

It’s about a board that plans, against a board that golfs.

It’s about a club that found a manager nobody else was looking at, against a club that found St. Martin the Hunskelper down the back of the sofa because the clock ran out.

Hearts have moved on both fronts now.

Manager. Squad. Done, and dusted, before pre-season.

We’ve got a re-hire and a fax machine cranking out the same noise it’s made for years.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…

So will Vrancken be the man to take the challenge to Celtic?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But while we’re waiting to find out, ask yourself the only question that matters.

When did we last move that fast on anything?

I’ll wait.

It was ever thus.

Sad but true.

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