Derek McInnes gives Hearts transfer update after landing his 'Rolls Royce' as another new man catches eye
Jambos move temporarily top of the league as Ageu makes his debut
Hearts head coach Derek McInnes purred with excitement over the club’s new record signing Ageu after the Brazilian midfielder came on to help fire the Jambos top of the Premiership with a 2-1 win away at Livingston.
Ageu, a 23-year-old who was bought for a seven-figure sum from Santa Clara in Portugal, made his debut on 66 minutes and was part of a Hearts team that battled back from a goal down to prevail in West Lothian. Claudio Braga headed home the equaliser on 47 minutes before another substitute in Alexandros Kyziridis fired home the winner in stoppage time.
Ageu showed intelligence and flashes of his potential at Hearts and McInnes believes that the Brazilian has the hallmarks of James Maddison, who he signed on loan from Tottenham Hotspur in 2016 during his time in charge of Aberdeen.
“I think he's going to be brilliant for us,” said McInnes. “When I first set eyes on him about four weeks ago, he just epitomises robustness, smoothness. I don't think he's got a fault as a midfielder. He can do everything. We play them narrow off the left, he gets his shot away and he makes a brilliant run across the backline, he sees the space, he drives into it, with the ball or without the ball, he looks after the ball, he's composed, he's got a change of pace.
“I'm going to say it - I don't want to put too much pressure on him but I'm going to - when I watched his video clips for the first time the only player who I've ever signed who gave me something similar was James Maddison and the different types of players, but I remember watching James Maddison clips and my head of the group said we can get this boy if we can do this and I just thought he's not going to come to us and he did, and we got him and we’ve loved working with him.
“I felt from that moment when we said let's try and do it, the club have done so much good work to get him here, we've signed him on wages at Hearts wages so it's not as if there's a significant fee involved, but I think the fee is well justified to be honest.
New Hearts transfer is ‘bit of a Rolls Royce’
“We've signed a lot of players who have played at a lower level and because with analytics we feel as though they've got that big move in them, this boy looks a bit more ready made for us now and from that side you see him today, he's a bit of a Rolls Royce in the way he moves, he's just so natural and he's going to do well for us, I've no doubt about that.
“I think he can play part of midfield three, he can play part of midfield two, he can actually play tucked in off the side in certain games as well, so he's not a 6, an 8 or a 10. I'm fed up with that. People say we need a 6, we need an 8, I just want my midfielder to be a midfielder and he's got a bit of everything.”
McInnes was pleased with his team’s desire to turn around a poor first half, with his change of formation from 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2 and the introduction of Kyziridis paying immediate dividends. He warned his players though that they need to be at it from the very first whistle.
“I enjoyed the whole second half to be honest,” said McInnes. “Right from the start I thought there was an intent. I know the change of shape helps, but it was more than that. It shouldn't take to half time really to re-emphasise certain points but I thought we passed forward, we were far more competitive, played quicker passes across the surface, played into wide areas, we got crosses in the box, we actually looked like the team I wanted us to be. And whether the change of shape helped, I think it did, but it was more than that ,as I said.
“We set out with a team with a lot of St Mirren in mind, where I felt in that early part of the game as an away team we were second best to second balls and not winning first headers. I thought we were opposite of that today, I thought we dealt with Livingston's directness with our big lads up top and we picked up loads of second balls. We just didn't play with enough tempo on the back of it.
“You see the second half, it's quick free-kicks, two runs, throw-ins quicker, everything was so ... pedestrian would be too harsh but just not the tempo that's going to get the job done for us to be honest. We're so annoyed with the goal we lose, it's too simplistic, it's not good enough. We've done a video yesterday on the boy Smith, a lot of the video was him driving in the pitch, either with his final pass or his shot.
Kyziridis impresses with second-half show
“We've got to do better to show him on the outside, we've got to be running onto a Hearts player, onto a body, not having a free shot or goal from 20-25 yards, it is simply not good enough that. We've managed to dig ourselves out of the day and win a second half with a strong performance that allows us to win the game but we cannae keep coming from behind on that. So that goal we lose isn't going to get the job done.
“The good thing for me is I feel like a lot of the bigger clubs that you see, I thought we had the answers on the bench again and I think we have got game changers and guys that can make a difference. But I want to be guys that make a difference when either we are drawing a game or winning a game to go and reinforce a lead or to get us from a drawing position into a winning position. It is good that we have got that coming, and there is no doubt Kyziridis did well.”
On Kyziridis, McInnes continued: “I think Kyziridis is a fantastic outlet for us and can be a gamechanger. His best performances, you might say his only performances as a third back, but his best performances have come when the game gets stretched and has that impact.
“I know he’s been disappointed today because we lined up a couple of times with training and he was in the team, but we changed, we went in a different way with him being able to come on. He's getting closer and he's more than played his part in the short term with us and the fans have really taken to him as well, which is important for any player.”
McInnes was asked about transfers, with a deal for German goalkeeper Alexander Schwolow seemingly imminent, and the manager added: “I don't know where we are with that one. We're hoping that we can have some sort of announcement on one more signing before the window closes and if that is a bit more concrete then you will know that when the club announces it, but I'm not sure where it is at the minute.”
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