Joe Savage leaves Hearts ( updated )

[Luckies1874]

This article will go down well his fans 

 

Tattie Heid:

 

“Sebastian Tounekti cost over £5million and I rate him as the best wide player in the league so it’s not as though Celtic aren’t spending a lot of money.”

 

Clearly hasn't been watching our Kyzi for the last 3 months! 

 

 

 

[Smithian]

3 minutes ago, Luckies1874 said:

This article will go down well his fans 

 

Tattie Heid:

 

“Sebastian Tounekti cost over £5million and I rate him as the best wide player in the league so it’s not as though Celtic aren’t spending a lot of money.”

 

Clearly hasn't been watching our Kyzi for the last 3 months! 

 

 

 

I'm a Joe Savage defender on this board, still isn't it time for him to get back at it somewhere? Head of Recruitment at Norwich, Preston then Sporting Director at Hearts is a solid CV!

[Luckies1874]

2 minutes ago, Smithian said:

I'm a Joe Savage defender on this board, still isn't it time for him to get back at it somewhere? Head of Recruitment at Norwich, Preston then Sporting Director at Hearts is a solid CV!

 

He's started his own consultancy business. 

Edited November 13, 2025 by Luckies1874

[jamboinglasgow]

Thats the second of these articles the Daily Record has done in two days. Yesterday it was Joe Lewis saying he thinks Hearts will fall away like Aberdeen last season with the headline "Derek McInnes’ ally writes off Hearts title chances as he makes doomsday Aberdeen comparison"

 

They must be pandering to worried Old Firm fans.

[OTT]

Just now, Luckies1874 said:

 

He's started his own business. 

 

Seems like a very strange business, IIRC he's some sort of intermediary between agents and clubs? An intermediaries Intermediary...

 

No ill will to Savage, oversaw us finishing 3rd, 4th and 3rd, which is one of the more successful periods in recent times. Its a shame he couldn't hack it mentally though, obviously good at his job, I'm surprised a job down South didn't interest him. Get out of the Scottish football goldfish bowl, join a club with less demands - that kind of thing. 

 

Seems like the focus of the article is very much all about Celtic, so not surprising that the author has flipped it into being a negative towards us. 

[OTT]

3 minutes ago, jamboinglasgow said:

Thats the second of these articles the Daily Record has done in two days. Yesterday it was Joe Lewis saying he thinks Hearts will fall away like Aberdeen last season with the headline "Derek McInnes’ ally writes off Hearts title chances as he makes doomsday Aberdeen comparison"

 

They must be pandering to worried Old Firm fans.

 

I think they're banking on us falling away again, so they can be vindicated on a very safe bet. 

 

Winning the league with effectively the same resources as the rest of the league outside the OF is borderline impossible. The 8 games against Rangers & Celtic guard against an outsider, and then invariably you're going to drop points to the other sides simply by virtue of not having £30m to spend in the summer. 

 

IMO they're looking for us to collapse in December or even just lose both the Celtic and Rangers games so they can say we're back in our place etc. 

 

Scottish football media is an embarrassment. Talk about wanting a challenger, but want to do nothing other than cut down any tall poppies the first chance they get. 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

It's hardly a shocking take that someone thinks Celtic will ultimately win the league. I don't expect Savage to be a Hearts fluffer in all of his takes and I of course hope he's wrong, but nothing I saw in that article was a shocker. Their players cost more than ours and they haven't performed to their potential.

 

He gave his honest assessment and it's grounded in reasonable observations. Again, hopefully the JTA players play above their value like we hope they do. I liked Savage fine when he was here, would feel no need to defend him if he were talking shite, but I don't see anything to be upset about here.

 

[GinRummy]

Snake oil salesman. 

[kingantti1874]

No way I’d swap kyzi for tounetki.  Not a chance 

[Radio-Braga]

11 hours ago, Luckies1874 said:

This article will go down well his fans 

 

Tattie Heid:

 

“Sebastian Tounekti cost over £5million and I rate him as the best wide player in the league so it’s not as though Celtic aren’t spending a lot of money.”

 

Clearly hasn't been watching our Kyzi for the last 3 months! 

 

 

 

Of course he is going to say that about Tounekti, he’s a Celtic fan. 
 

Tounekti is so over rated it’s baffling. 

[PapaShango]

An absolute wage thief if ever I saw one at Hearts. He was responsible for some of the worst recruitment we have seen in terms of fees paid / wages given to bang average players. An absolute blow hard who liked the sound of his own voice. All in all a typical weegie. 

[Jim Panzee]

7 minutes ago, PapaShango said:

An absolute wage thief if ever I saw one at Hearts. He was responsible for some of the worst recruitment we have seen in terms of fees paid / wages given to bang average players. An absolute blow hard who liked the sound of his own voice. All in all a typical weegie. 

I'm indifferent to the guy - but we did finish 3, 4, 3 under him?

 

In a results driven sport that's probably what he'd point to.

 

think he was around when Beni, shanks and cochrane joined us. Bit better than the random signings like Danny Amankwaa?

 

 

[boag1874]

13 minutes ago, PapaShango said:

An absolute wage thief if ever I saw one at Hearts. He was responsible for some of the worst recruitment we have seen in terms of fees paid / wages given to bang average players. An absolute blow hard who liked the sound of his own voice. All in all a typical weegie. 

Bit of an exaggeration - we also signed some really good players under him too, many of who are still at the club.

 

As for fees/wages to bang average players, have you forgotten Levein's 2nd tenure, 99-01 & the late 2000's?

[B4 Part B]

Thought he did a decent job for us, some good players joined (and some poor ones), but results on the park while he was here were decent so fair play. We've moved on to a whole other planet now though.

 

On another note, let them keep coming out with these articles etc. just more wallpaper for the dressing room!

[Ricardo Quaresma]

Bull5h1tter and bitter celtic tw@t that did nothing but try to look good in his role by merely talking the talk

 

Bare-faced liar

[GinRummy]

23 minutes ago, boag1874 said:

Bit of an exaggeration - we also signed some really good players under him too, many of who are still at the club.

 

As for fees/wages to bang average players, have you forgotten Levein's 2nd tenure, 99-01 & the late 2000's?

Most of those good players were signed in the first window after promotion, since then ‘till he left it was pretty shit tbh. 

[A_A wehatethehibs]

3 minutes ago, GinRummy said:

Most of those good players were signed in the first window after promotion, since then ‘till he left it was pretty shit tbh. 

 

With a DoF, you look at where he took over vs when he left. 
 

He took over, where the previous DoF lead us into a death spiral that ended in demotion, one of the most shocking squads in living memory. Robbie had dumped a few duds and cobbled together a covid championship team, which had enough in the tank to get 1st unspectacularly. That was where Joe started. 
 

vs when he left

 

We had a fully built out modernised recruitment, 3 successive European finishes, and a strong squad with the leagues top goalscorer, good midfielders, and international defenders. 

 

Joe can hold his head high, although when he left i think he probably jumped before he was pushed. When noises about Bloom started happening internally, he would’ve seen the writing on the wall so he moved on. 
 

 

[GinRummy]

8 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

 

With a DoF, you look at where he took over vs when he left. 
 

He took over, where the previous DoF lead us into a death spiral that ended in demotion, one of the most shocking squads in living memory. Robbie had dumped a few duds and cobbled together a covid championship team, which had enough in the tank to get 1st unspectacularly. That was where Joe started. 
 

vs when he left

 

We had a fully built out modernised recruitment, 3 successive European finishes, and a strong squad with the leagues top goalscorer, good midfielders, and international defenders. 

 

Joe can hold his head high, although when he left i think he probably jumped before he was pushed. When noises about Bloom started happening internally, he would’ve seen the writing on the wall so he moved on. 
 

 

Seems pretty simplistic and overlooks any negatives entirely. One example being the point I made about one good window then, despite increased budgets, a lot of poor to mediocre ones. 
 

Not sure how much credit he deserves for bringing in Shankland but Shanks probably kept Savage in a job. 

Edited November 14, 2025 by GinRummy

[BigStein]

I feel like everyone always presumed to know what his role entailed. We had scouts and data analysts, we had (and still have) Will Lancefield as our Head of Recruitment and we had managers making the final say on who we should sign. Maybe he dealt with the negotiations? Although that could have easily been McKinlay's role or someone on the Board setting out what we could afford. 

 

All we can really say for certain is that Savage helped to build our recruitment department. 

[A_A wehatethehibs]

4 minutes ago, GinRummy said:

Seems pretty simplistic and overlooks any negatives entirely. One example being the point I made about one good window then, despite increased budgets, a lot of poor to mediocre ones. 
 

Not sure how much credit he deserves for bringing in Shankland but Shanks probably kept Savage in a job. 

Not simplistic at all, the job takes years to make an impact, its not an instant thing like a player or a manager, so you look at the whole picture. Over the passage of time there are always positives and negatives. But with directors and senior leaders, IMO, the biggest thing is, have they left the club in a better state than they found it? With joe the answer is clearly yes. With levein the answer was very clearly No. 

Edited November 14, 2025 by A_A wehatethehibs

[RustyRightPeg]

15 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

 

With a DoF, you look at where he took over vs when he left. 
 

He took over, where the previous DoF lead us into a death spiral that ended in demotion, one of the most shocking squads in living memory. Robbie had dumped a few duds and cobbled together a covid championship team, which had enough in the tank to get 1st unspectacularly. That was where Joe started. 
 

vs when he left

 

We had a fully built out modernised recruitment, 3 successive European finishes, and a strong squad with the leagues top goalscorer, good midfielders, and international defenders. 

 

Joe can hold his head high, although when he left i think he probably jumped before he was pushed. When noises about Bloom started happening internally, he would’ve seen the writing on the wall so he moved on. 
 

 

People think it’s all recruitment. 
 

Don’t think people realise how threadbare it was behind the scenes when he arrived. Joe put a football department in place and was responsible for everything football on the day to day, as well as the recruitment. 
 

Yes he comes across as a bit corny, but ultimately he was very good for Hearts. 

Edited November 14, 2025 by RustyRightPeg

[JamboJoker98]

Left us in a better place than when he arrived - it's all about incremental gains, he improved us but took us as far as he could. We move on, we don't have to re-write history into a black and white story.

 

Look at what came before him to see what really bad looks like. 

Edited November 14, 2025 by JamboJoker98

[Hømme]

Joe Savage is a good guy who worked his behind off for our club.

[Lord Beni of Gorgie]

We basically need to get in our bubble, not the burst one, the other one, and forget about noise. Simply about playing 38 games as best we can and see where it takes us. 

 

What anyones opinion is, irrelevant to what we actually do. Of course people will say we can't keep it up, nobody has any evidence we actually can, but ditto Rangers really, take out the COVID outlier

[Carter]

24 minutes ago, RustyRightPeg said:

People think it’s all recruitment. 
 

Don’t think people realise how threadbare it was behind the scenes when he arrived. Joe put a football department in place and was responsible for everything football on the day to day, as well as the recruitment. 
 

Yes he comes across as a bit corny, but ultimately he was very good for Hearts. 

If that's the case, surely people should be asking what Levein was doing across the 6 years prior to Savage arrival.

[RustyRightPeg]

2 minutes ago, Carter said:

If that's the case, surely people should be asking what Levein was doing across the 6 years prior to Savage arrival.

There’s no if. He’s on record many a time explaining it all. 
 

Levein was doing too many roles and none of them to their full capabilities as he was so far stretched.

[Gundermann]

24 minutes ago, Hømme said:

Joe Savage is a good guy who worked his behind off for our club.

 

[Hearts1975]

55 minutes ago, Ricardo Quaresma said:

Bull5h1tter and bitter celtic tw@t that did nothing but try to look good in his role by merely talking the talk

 

Bare-faced liar

How so? 

Can't understand this thinking at all. When he came in he had entered a shit show. The recruitment was nothing short of shocking at that point. And that wasn't his doing. 

I am not making any comparisons to the present day but Joe did a decent job for us imo.

He had a bit of ambition .. nothing wrong with that. 

[The Real Maroonblood]

5 minutes ago, RustyRightPeg said:

There’s no if. He’s on record many a time explaining it all. 
 

Levein was doing too many roles and none of them to their full capabilities as he was so far stretched.

To sum up Levein was a wage thief.

[RustyRightPeg]

35 minutes ago, Hømme said:

Joe Savage is a good guy who worked his behind off for our club.

He is indeed. 

[GinRummy]

51 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

Not simplistic at all, the job takes years to make an impact, it’s not an instant thing like a player or a manager, so you look at the whole picture. Over the passage of time there are always positives and negatives. But with directors and senior leaders, IMO, the biggest thing is, have they left the club in a better state than they found it? With joe the answer is clearly yes. With levein the answer was very clearly No. 

I am looking at the whole picture. Recruitment was going backwards. It had been going backwards since the first window after promotion. 
 

The answer is yes but you are judging a club with a budget in the top 5 for the country that had just been promoted from the championship. I’ve never met you but I’m fairly sure you could have improved us at that point.

 

Just because Levein done a shite job doesn’t mean Savage done a good one. 
 

You’ve still chosen not to talk about the regression in recruitment after savages first season which, for me, was really concerning. 

[Bill Sikes]

Plenty Hearts supporters need someone or something to be angry with.

 

These threads are definitely required when nothing is occurring due to the International nonsense. 

 

 

[RustyRightPeg]

45 minutes ago, GinRummy said:

I am looking at the whole picture. Recruitment was going backwards. It had been going backwards since the first window after promotion. 
 

The answer is yes but you are judging a club with a budget in the top 5 for the country that had just been promoted from the championship. I’ve never met you but I’m fairly sure you could have improved us at that point.

 

Just because Levein done a shite job doesn’t mean Savage done a good one. 
 

You’ve still chosen not to talk about the regression in recruitment after savages first season which, for me, was really concerning. 

You don’t think Savage left the areas of his responsibility in a better state than when he arrived? 

[GinRummy]

Just now, RustyRightPeg said:

You don’t think Savage left the areas of his responsibility in a better state than when he arrived? 

Where do you get that idea on what I think?

[RustyRightPeg]

2 minutes ago, GinRummy said:

Where do you get that idea on what I think?

I was just asking, you specifically referred to recruitment, but Savage’s role was much bigger than that. 

[Luckies1874]

4 hours ago, kingantti1874 said:

No way I’d swap kyzi for tounetki.  Not a chance 

If the season ended today I’d have Kyzi as player of the year for the entire league. That’s how impactful he’s been. We will see if he can keep it up for another 7 months, if he does he will be away for substantially more money than any Hearts player outside Craig Gordon, in our history. 

[N Lincs Jambo]

He's moved on, we've moved on. This season the headlines have all been about Hearts, Tony Bloom, Derek McInnes, Shanks, Kyzi, Braga, Halkett, etc but nothing about a certain Joe Savage. Until now of course when he questions whether we can actually go the distance and win it this year. Wakeup call for JS, pretty much all of us here, die-hard Jambos, have the same questions. You ain't saying anything new.

 

I won't be clicking on the west coast rag but I am aware this is their second pop in two days after Joe Lewis yesterday. Derek McInnes is clearly building a siege mentality around and about us much like Fergie did at Aberdeen. He's doing this for a reason and the reason is abundantly clear - the vested interests in the west are shit scared, not necessarily because of what we're doing this season but what we can do over the next 10 years with Tony Bloom's influence.

 

The OF are pig sick this season that neither of them have CL cash. That though is down to them performing poorly. The last thing they want is another team capable of taking that away from one/both of them domestically and we all know they will do whatever it takes to stop us. Feck 'em!

[N Lincs Jambo]

4 minutes ago, Luckies1874 said:

If the season ended today I’d have Kyzi as player of the year for the entire league. That’s how impactful he’s been. We will see if he can keep it up for another 7 months, if he does he will be away for substantially more money than any Hearts player outside Craig Gordon, in our history. 

 

There's two major differences between Kyzi and Tounekti, one is about £5 Million, the other is that one has made a huge impact on the Scottish game in a very short period of time. I wonder who got the better outcome?

[GinRummy]

22 minutes ago, RustyRightPeg said:

I was just asking, you specifically referred to recruitment, but Savage’s role was much bigger than that. 

I’m aware of that but he was billed as the ‘recruitment specialist’ and completely rebuilt the recruitment department. Should he not be judged on the results of that?

[RustyRightPeg]

2 minutes ago, GinRummy said:

I’m aware of that but he was billed as the ‘recruitment specialist’ and completely rebuilt the recruitment department. Should he not be judged on the results of that?

Yeah he should. 3rd, 4th and 3rd.
 

The second someone else did the recruitment we looked a relegation candidate for much of the season and handed out inflated contracts to average players . 

[AlimOzturk]

Do we reckon a big part of the reason savage left was because Hearts had the opportunity to bring in James Town thus making Savage role redundant?

[RustyRightPeg]

15 minutes ago, AlimOzturk said:

Do we reckon a big part of the reason savage left was because Hearts had the opportunity to bring in James Town thus making Savage role redundant?

No, because we replaced him with Graeme Jones.

[Der Kaiser]

17 minutes ago, AlimOzturk said:

Do we reckon a big part of the reason savage left was because Hearts had the opportunity to bring in James Town thus making Savage role redundant?

 

The abuse he received from Hearts fans played a part in it as well. Some of our fan base should be ashamed of their behaviour towards him.

[boag1874]

9 minutes ago, RustyRightPeg said:

No, because we replaced him with Graeme Jones.

Both guys quite different in their style though - Savage was very much someone with an extensive recruitment background after working with Alex Neil for so many years whereas Jones is more of a performance analysis/sports science type of guy. To me it seems Jones is someone much more suited to the JTA model than Savage.

[RustyRightPeg]

Just now, boag1874 said:

Both guys quite different in their style though - Savage was very much someone with an extensive recruitment background after working with Alex Neil for so many years whereas Jones is more of a performance analysis/sports science type of guy. To me it seems Jones is someone much more suited to the JTA model than Savage.

Aye 100%, but in terms of Savage being redundant I don’t think that was the case.
 

Jones is much better suited for our new setup for sure. 

[boag1874]

1 minute ago, RustyRightPeg said:

Aye 100%, but in terms of Savage being redundant I don’t think that was the case.
 

Jones is much better suited for our new setup for sure. 

Yeah redundant maybe isn't the word, but maybe he saw the direction the club was heading, how his role might be affected by that & thought to himself privately "actually this seems like a good time to move on"

[GinRummy]

47 minutes ago, RustyRightPeg said:

Yeah he should. 3rd, 4th and 3rd.
 

The second someone else did the recruitment we looked a relegation candidate for much of the season and handed out inflated contracts to average players . 

I’m not denying what he achieved. What I’m saying is he had a great first season on recruitment then we did not build on that. When he left we were already going backwards. Our best players before Jamestown were either bought in during his first season, were here before that or Lawrence Shankland. 

[AlimOzturk]

5 minutes ago, boag1874 said:

Yeah redundant maybe isn't the word, but maybe he saw the direction the club was heading, how his role might be affected by that & thought to himself privately "actually this seems like a good time to move on"

Redundant was maybe the wrong word to use as Jones has effectively taken up the position but in a very different stylistic capacity. Like you say more geared towards the Jamestown job. 
 

Just wondering if there was a frank discussion had with Savage that his role would be significantly different and he didn’t buy into it. 
 

Just guess work on my part. 

[boag1874]

2 minutes ago, AlimOzturk said:

Redundant was maybe the wrong word to use as Jones has effectively taken up the position but in a very different stylistic capacity. Like you say more geared towards the Jamestown job. 
 

Just wondering if there was a frank discussion had with Savage that his role would be significantly different and he didn’t buy into it. 
 

Just guess work on my part. 

Yeah, again could be putting 2+2 together to get 5 here but it's a gut feeling I've had since the rumours of his exit coupled with the noises coming out about Bloom being in talks both sort of coincided with each other, it just seemed so out the blue at the time especially as everything was looking pretty positive after season 23/24

[Carter]

2 hours ago, RustyRightPeg said:

There’s no if. He’s on record many a time explaining it all. 
 

Levein was doing too many roles and none of them to their full capabilities as he was so far stretched.

I get that, particularly when you consider what Budge inherited on day one. But it calls into question how a much vaunted 5 year plan could have created such an absence of a basic structure in the period before Savage arrived. Probably exacerbated by the ridiculous appointment of Levein as manager. 

 

It's great that we're moving forward in the way we are at this time. But it's fair to say there have been some really poor decisions and particularly poor oversight on a few occasions since 2014.