Liam Fox agrees terms to return to Hearts after spells at Aberdeen, Dundee United and Livingston

Liam Fox has agreed terms to rejoin the Hearts coaching staff following spells at Aberdeen, Dundee United and Livingston. The 39-year-old will take charge of the Edinburgh club’s B team as he prepares to return to Riccarton after a three-year absence.

As revealed online by the Evening News on Thursday, Hearts intend to continue with their B team in Scotland’s Lowland League next season despite Rangers withdrawing from the division. Fox will replace Steven Naismith as B team coach, with Naismith now leading the senior management team under the title of technical director.

A modern-thinking coach with experience of developing youngsters, Fox’s role will involve honing teenage Hearts players and helping them prepare for potential first-team promotion. The club extended contracts of 17 academy graduates in recent months and hope to push some of them towards senior level.

The Riccarton youth academy has been criticised in recent years for not producing enough players for the Hearts first team. Fox will be a vital conduit in that process over the coming months as he re-establishes himself at the club he has supported since childhood.

A former midfielder with Hearts, Inverness, Livingston and Raith Rovers, Fox began his coaching career with the Tynecastle club back in 2015. He left to manage Cowdenbeath in May 2016 but returned to Riccarton the following year as a first-team coach. He then took over Hearts’ reserve team late in 2019 before exiting the club again nine months later.

Livingston appointed Fox assistant manager to David Martindale in December 2020, but within six months he moved to Dundee United as assistant to Tam Courts. He became interim manager at Tannadice Park last August after Courts’ successor, Jack Ross, was sacked, and took the job on a permanent basis the following month.

He lost his job in February this year and quickly moved to Aberdeen as part of Barry Robson’s coaching staff. That arrangement ended when the 2022/23 season finished, with Fox and his family keen not to move from their home in the Edinburgh area. Fox is now set to pick up where he left off back at Hearts.