Wouter Vrancken aims to challenge Glasgow teams for Scottish Premiership title

New Hearts head coach Wouter Vrancken says his remit is to continue to "compete with the Glasgow teams" for the Scottish Premiership title next season.

The 47-year-old former Genk and Sint-Truiden boss has signed a two-year contract at Tynecastle to succeed Derek McInnes, who moved to Rangers last week.

Vrancken left hometown club Sint-Truiden this summer after leading them to third place in the Belgian Pro League - their highest finish in 60 years - in his first full season in post, and was named Belgium's coach of the year.

He takes charge of a Hearts side who missed on their first top-flight league title since 1960 after a final-day defeat by champions Celtic.

"[The remit] is to compete with the Glasgow teams and to try to overachieve again and have a good season, try to fight for the top spots," Vrancken said.

"We will fight for the best. They had a smell of the title last year, that's the nicest thing to play for.

"Everybody wants to play for those spots and we have to try out best to get to the level and get the Hearts I want to see.

"First being as good as possible at this, then we can have another great season."

Having managed four Belgian teams, Vrancken now helms a first club outside his homeland and was "courted by many European sides" before opting for Hearts, the Tynecastle club say.

Belgian football consultant and podcaster Scott Coyne believes it is "a bit of a coup" for Hearts to have secured Vrancken.

"He could have gone to France or Germany and I think he's picked Hearts because of the Champions League football, because of Edinburgh," he said.

"I think there's something about Hearts' success last season - he sees a template over the next two, three, four years potentially to go and do something really interesting.

"He likes really direct and fluid football. So think quick transitions, lots of player rotations, an aggressive press, lots of overloads, fluidity in the wing play as well, so his wing-backs and his wingers are going to be out wide a lot.

"He might give you defensive headaches sometimes because he's one of those coaches who does like to go pretty gung-ho. So you will concede some goals playing in a Wouter Vrancken side, but you'll also score a lot as well.

"He's excellent with sides on limited resources, getting them to really punch above their weight, because he creates this environment inside squads that is really tight knit. And he's just really good at identifying bad apples.

"He fits the way Hearts want to play football and the way they're looking to recruit players.

"He understands the Jamestown model as well because obviously he's coached against Union Saint-Gilloise with a number of clubs in Belgium over the past few years."

Hearts face a rebuilding job this summer - and not just because they have changed head coach and lost the man who led them close to their first title in 66 years in his only season in charge.

Scotland striker and Hearts captain Lawrence Shankland had already left for Rangers before McInnes joined last season's top scorer at Ibrox.

Beni Beningime has left under freedom of contract, fellow key midfielder Cammy Devlin has yet to decide whether to accept a new deal and there are doubts about the future of 43-year-old Scotland goalkeeper Craig Gordon.

Michael Steinwender and Frankie Kent are also among the departures and fellow defender Craig Halkett will miss the start of the season through injury, while reports suggest Claudio Braga - Scottish football's player of the year last season - and winger Alexandros Kyziridis could be next to be sold.

However, that is seen as a normal part of the buy-low, sell-for-profit strategy adopted by recruitment partner Jamestown Analytics at Brighton and Union St-Gilloise.

Hearts have already brought in seven players, only two of them with any Scottish pedigree - wingers Calvin Miller and Josh McPake from Falkirk and St Johnstone respectively.

It will be Vrancken's job to fashion them into a winning team while satisfying expectations of success fuelled by coming so close to glory last season.

He does not have long to do so either, with Champions League qualifiers added to the fixture schedule this season.