Build quality

Doubts remain over his future at the club, but John Robertson has been entrusted with funds to bolster the Hearts squad with up to five top-class players, reports Stewart Fisher

JOHN ROBERTSON has a licence to build. The break clause in the Hearts coach’s contract places uncertainty on whether he will be around after June, but come the summer Vladimir Romanov will have permitted him to oversee the construction of an almost entirely new team.

The January transfer window alone saw five players arrive, and another five depart, but that is far from the end of his restructuring. Robertson said last night that another “four or five” players are sure to arrive this summer.

Phil Stamp, Kevin McKenna, Patrick Kisnorbo and Ramon Pereira are already earmarked to leave the club, while Hearts conceded last week that Celtic’s Ulrik Laursen and David Fernandez were genuine transfer targets.

Romanov, however, is understood to have plans to import more players from the former Soviet bloc, provisions which extend to almost every area of the team.

The Sunday Herald understands he was thwarted in a bid to sign first-choice Lithuanian goalkeeper Gintaras Karcemarskas from Dinamo Moscow shortly before the transfer window closed, with the most likely outcome being that he would join his countrymen Deividas Cesnauskis, Saulius Mikoliunas and Marius Kizys at Tynecastle. That would certainly have provided some competition for Craig Gordon.

“We will maybe be looking to bring in four or five players to improve the squad,” Robertson said. “The challenge is to find players who are better than the ones we have got, but they are few and far between. So that is why we have to look hard to different areas of the world to try and find players now.

“The competition is great now, and it is going to get even greater come the summer, because we want to dig in, bring in some good quality players and improve the product even more. We have got to make sure that we look long and hard, find the players that will suit our style of play and will work at it, and hopefully have a successful season.

“We have still got a fair few players under contract, we have got a few out. But in my opinion it will not be wholesale changes.”

All the same, it is thought no further developments on new players are likely to materialise until the spring, with the Lithuanian league set to recommence at the start of April.

Exactly where nationality comes into the reckoning as far as potential signing targets are concerned remains unclear, but for Robertson the most important thing is simply that they can fit into the new attacking system he is attempting to implement.

“We are trying to play something that is a bit more pleasing on the eye,” Robertson said. “And there will be set-backs. It will be like that until we get that right and we get the personnel right. My dedication is to put out good, strong, attacking teams and I won’t shirk from that.

“The Lithuanian lads are getting a lot of praise at the moment,” he added, “but there are a lot of guys in the team who are doing well. Hearts had a tremendous squad when I came here, and these guys have all improved it.”

How many of the old guard remain beyond this summer is most definitely a moot point.

Although key men such as Andy Webster and Paul Hartley are under contract until at least 2006, it also depends upon the conclusion of the negotiating process which is under way for the likes of Steven Pressley.

“All the contracts are out to agents and players and we are just waiting to hear back,” Robertson said. “We are in negotiations. That is football and we are trying to get something sorted out.” That includes a permanent deal with Bristol City for on-loan striker Lee Miller.

One player in the position of being both under contract beyond the summer and on the receiving end of new competition for first-team places is Jamie McAllister.

The former Livingston left-back was in the Scotland set-up as recently as the twin friendly victories against Estonia and Trinidad & Tobago last summer, but has found his time divided recently between an unfamiliar midfield role, or on the bench due to the emergence of Lee Wallace.

It has hardly helped his inter-national ambitions under new Scotland coach Walter Smith, but there are indications that McAllister could return to the left-back berth for the meeting with his former club in the Scottish Cup this afternoon. It is a tie which will provide him with mixed emotions.

“It’s not nice to see the way Livingston are going at the moment because they’re a good club and I had some great times there,” said McAllister.

“There was obviously stuff going on when I was there last season and not only has it continued, but got gradually worse. I’ve got a lot of good friends at the club so from a personal point of view, it is sad to see. It is impossible to say whether the club would be in the situation they are now if Davie Hay had stayed, but what I do know from my time there is that the players respected him. Then he [Pearse Flynn] went for Allan Preston and as far as I’m concerned he didn’t give him enough time either but again it’s his call.

“It’s not a nice situation at all, but we did well last year through the hard times and I’d like to see them do the same again this time and still be in the SPL next year.”

Despite the turmoil at Almondvale, McAllister is canny enough to be wary. “To be honest when things were going on at the club last year it actually brought all the players closer together as a group,” he said. “I’m on the other side this time so there is a bit of a fear that the troubles spur them on as it did when I was there last season. We’ll just need to make sure we’re prepared for that.”

McAllister’s cup memories are similarly mixed. He ventured forward to score the clincher in the CIS Cup final against Hibs last season, putting to bed a jinx which saw him pick up an unjust suspension which cost him his semi-final place in that same run, not to mention an earlier humiliation in the 4-0 Scottish Cup final defeat Aberdeen suffered at Rangers in May 2000. Then there was last month’s CIS semi-final misery against Motherwell.

Romanov, meanwhile, has been back in Kaunas and then Hong Kong, and is involved in expanding his shareholding in Ukio Bankas, despite being nominally the owner. Whether he invests £30m or £100m in the club during his chairmanship, Robertson and Hearts appear likely to cash in.

27 February 2005


Taken from the Sunday Herald