Derek McInnes has heard all the allegations before: He only signs British or Irish players; he won’t work with a sporting director; he wants total club control from top to bottom. The new Hearts head coach debunked some of those myths simply by signing a four-year contract at Tynecastle Park. He will attempt to quash the rest over the coming weeks and months.

Hearts will sign both British and foreign players under McInnes. The first came on Wednesday when Greek winger Alexandros Kyziridis was confirmed on a three-year deal which takes effect next month. Norwegian right-back Christian Borchgrevink had already signed a pre-contract with the Edinburgh club before McInnes left Kilmarnock for Tynecastle Park. Others will follow. Agreements with Kazakhstan international winger Islam Chesnokov and Belgian striker Elton Kabangu are close.

Excitement rather than mistrust is McInnes’ overriding emotion when discussing Hearts’ relationship with Jamestown Analytics. The sports data and recruitment firm help identify signing targets. They also approved McInnes himself as a good fit for Gorgie. At previous clubs like St Johnstone and Aberdeen, proper recruitment strategies were scarce. McInnes didn’t have a sporting director to shoulder some of the burden, whereas at Hearts he now has Graeme Jones. He argues that he took complete control before because he had little choice.

“I think that’s because I had to, to be honest,” he says when the question is put to him. “I had to at St Johnstone, there was nobody there doing it. At every club I’ve been at, I’ve had to grab it and take ownership of recruitment and drive that. I’ve never had a lot of money to spend. Obviously at Aberdeen we had some money, but we weren’t dependent on money to be a success in the transfer market. Whatever money we do get to spend, we need to try and spend it wisely. Some signings at Aberdeen you don’t always get right, but the majority work for us. A lot of them became real assets.

“Jamestown analytics, for me, is music to your ears as a manager. They’re dealing with all of that. Half my time as a manager is sifting through footage of players time and time again that clearly aren’t good enough. You’ve wasted a lot of time and energy speaking to agents and clubs and building all these relationships just to try and get some sort of little advantage. Where I’ve been before, you’re trying to get ahead of all these other clubs who are all in the same ballpark. We’re all paying roughly the same money. We’re all fishing in the same pond for players. We’ve all got similar relationships with agents and clubs. It’s hard just to gain that little bit of advantage.

“I do think we have a huge advantage with the Jamestown stuff. It’s important for us to try and utilise that. As for that whole narrative of me needing total control, it’s a manager’s job to control. As a head coach, you’ve got to control the day-to-day environment. You have to have some element of control if you’re going to lead and be a manager. But that whole narrative about having total control and being dead against working with a sporting director or whatever, it’s just not true. I’ve just never had the luxury or the opportunity to have one.”

Signings will come from varied backgrounds and McInnes will have a say in all of them. Jamestown’s data allows him to widen horizons. The London-based company’s model centres around selling players when they reach peak value – a policy which serves the likes of Brighton and Union Saint-Gilloise well, among others. There is one issue McInnes won’t compromise on: Hearts must retain a predominantly British core driving standards within the dressing room. Established players should dictate club culture and be motivated to set the agenda. It’s a non-negotiable.

“I’m looking forward to working in different markets and different ponds, obviously,” adds the head coach. “Even some players that have been put to me are players that wouldn’t ordinarily be on the horizon. In the last few years, as a manager, I’ve been looking at the out-of-contract list, the free agent list, the loan market. Obviously, now we’re looking at different ponds and different opportunities.

“I do think it’s important that we bring players from different countries and the like. It’s important that not every player that we sign at Hearts can be a project. Not every player that we sign at Hearts can be with a view to selling them on. It’s not as if they’re just visiting here and then they go elsewhere just because we can make a return.

“Obviously, it’s a business and we still want to be able to do that. But I believe, and I spoke strongly about this to the board, that there has to be a culture within the Hearts dressing room that when players come from outwith, that they know this is how you act at Hearts. This is how we behave. This is how we turn up. This is how we train. This is what’s expected of you.

“There has to be a core of British-based players here who see Hearts as the club they’re going to be at over the next few years and they remain constants within that. I really believe firmly on that. When a lot of lads come from overseas and need to get that integration, I think when you sign players from abroad, they work better and they work to their full potential when the culture is driven from within. That culture is driven from how we are at Hearts day-to-day.

“I think you’ve got to recognise what you’re dealing with in Scottish football. You can’t just fill it full of players from far-flung places. I just want to work with good players. If a good player comes from a certain country or another country, just bring them in. But I do think there’s got to be an identity and a culture within the club. I mean, you look at Brighton: Danny Welbeck, Lewis Dunk, James Milner. There are players there who stay at Brighton for a reason. They’re well-paid, but they’re vital. They’re all there for a reason to help bring these ones on.

“We’re a Scottish club. We have got to make sure there’s a core of Scottish players, ideally full of our academy players, where you get that maximum return in terms of value and maximum return in terms of performance. The academy is going to be so important to produce our own. If they don’t come from our own academy, then we should still have a core of real Scottish players because not every player that signs for Hearts has got to be visiting on their way. They’ve got to want to hang about, maximise their potential, enjoy being a Hearts player, keep driving the club forward. And hopefully with that, we can try and get the balance right.”

The first week in his new job has seen McInnes conduct an in-depth assessment of the Hearts first-team squad along with Jones. They identified areas to improve, but several players will leave in addition to the out-of-contract pair Jorge Grant and Barrie McKay. “I’ve looked at the squad. There’s a few that are out of contract and plenty that are under contract. There’s a lot of conversations that need to be had, obviously, to get Graeme to bring me up to speed with that,” says McInnes.

“My relationship with Graeme is going to be vital with all this. He’s someone I didn’t know really previously prior to speaking to him about the job. His enthusiasm, his eagerness, his determination to bring success to the club is infectious, really. We’ll try and make good decisions to bring the right players here. Not just good players, but the right players. I’m looking forward to it.

“This is unusual because you just want to get to work with your players. That’s the most important bit and I won’t see them now for another three or four weeks [until pre-season training begins]. But once we get back in and you get into the swing of things, it’s important that when the window closes at the end of August that we feel we’ve got a team which can meet the demand and a squad that’s ready.

“Not being involved in Europe this season is not something we want going forward. But it might just allow us that wee bit of time to just concentrate and focus on domestic football and try to get off to the strongest start as possible. I’ve got the family holiday booked, so I’ll still go on my holiday.

“I’ve watched plenty. I kind of get an idea. I know a lot about the players. There’s no real surprise. Obviously, when you work with them day in, day out, you maybe start to get to know them a wee bit more intimately and what makes them tick, really. But there are good players here, players who I’m sure are frustrated that the season has not given them everything they wanted. It’s up to me and the players to find out why it wasn’t as fulfilling as they’d hoped and to make sure that it’s a lot different next season. It’s not just new players coming in that does that. It’s getting a bit more from everybody in the building.”