Levein led Hearts to last season's Scottish Cup final where the lost to Celtic

Celtic v Hearts Venue: Celtic Park Date: Sunday, 25 August Coverage: Listen on BBC Radio Scotland; text commentary on the BBC Sport website

Hearts are well placed to prosper with manager Craig Levein, insists owner Ann Budge.

Budge backed Levein as both manager and director of football following recent criticism from some fans.

The Tynecastle side struggled in their League Cup group and sit with a point from two Scottish Premiership games.

"There's a pile of supporters who don't agree with me on this, but I think he's done a really good job in terms of what I asked him do," she told BBC Scotland.

"Now he's doing the manager's job, but in terms of everything else that he's built, we have an infrastructure on the football side that I think is second to none. That is really good for moving forward."

Since their 3-0 win against Dundee back in October, Hearts have played a total of 42 games and have only come out on top in 14 of those matches - and five were against lower-league teams.

This has led to fan unrest, but Budge insists the appointment of Levein back in August 2017 has been the "biggest decision" in her five years at the club.

"It was one of the other board members that asked 'why are we looking any further, have we not got the perfect person for this job?'" she said.

"I didn't want to take a risk with a young, relatively inexperienced person coming in again. I thought, if I'm looking for experience, I've got that."

'We have invested to compete for silverware'

The Edinburgh club spent £15 million building Tynecastle's new main stand, but Budge wants to assure fans this has not stopped them from investing in players.

She said: "I don't want supporters to think we have built this fantastic new stand at the expense of the team. We haven't.

"We have invested significantly more to ensure we are in a position to compete for silverware. We want to be in Europe, we want to be competing for the cups. Craig knows that. He believes it as well.

"We have always spent within our means. We have been very fortunate because we've got incredibly generous benefactors and supporters who are still supporting the club financially. These things have helped but equally we have built a business."

Listen to Ann Budge's interview on Sportsound from noon.