Tinkerman tailored to meet Romanov's high expectations

ALAN PATTULLO

AT THE start of this season, the Athletic Arms, a favoured drinking establishment for Hearts fans which more commonly goes by the name of Diggers, unveiled a large banner declaring "Welcome George".

Owing to the surreal events of the last week at Tynecastle, which began with George Burley's sacking, this greeting may need an exotic modification as Hearts consider bringing a bit of the King's Road to the Gorgie Road.

Welcome, then, Claudio. But who is Claudio Ranieri, the Italian who flew into Edinburgh on Thursday for talks with Hearts officials regarding the vacant manager's job?

And why are Hearts tracking a former manager of European heavyweights after prising their last three managers prior to Burley from Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Cowdenbeath and Falkirk? It's a long-time since the likes of Valencia and Chelsea featured on the Heart of Midlothian radar.

The prospect of Ranieri, ex of Chelsea, Valencia and also Atletico Madrid, joining up at Hearts seems an incredible one, although the Tynecastle club hold one trump card. Ranieri, like Burley before him, is out of work, and perhaps considered damaged goods on the continent after a second spell with Valencia ended in disarray last year. The then UEFA Cup holders' defeat by Dinamo Bucharest was the last straw, coming as it did on the back of a five-game run without a win.

This might not seem like outrageous failure, but in the high octane world where Ranieri has operated over the Past decade it meant the end was nigh. And he knew it. The Italian had few complaints when he was sacked, stating it had been deserved.

"I have always tried to create a group of players that battle hard and work together, but this time I couldn't do it," he said. He left Chelsea with the same dignity in May 2004, having taken them to the cusp of the European Cup final and to second place in the Premiership. His final 12 months in charge had been coloured by the almost continual speculation regarding his future at a club being bank-rolled by Roman Abramovich. It was during this time that he came up with what became the title of his own autobiography: Dead Man Walking. Most people knew the end would come sooner rather than later, and no-one was more alert to the temporary nature of his situation than the manager himself. "Wait until the summer at least," he told England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson after he took a wrong turning and walked into the Chelsea dressing-room by mistake not long after being spotted meeting with Abramovich.

Ranieri treated this uncomfortable spell in his life with a humour that was appreciated by the English press. Once one paper had branded him Tinkerman - due to his squad-rotation addiction - the rest followed. Ranieri ended up calling himself the Tinkerman. That's when he wasn't beating himself up. "F*** Claudio, bad, bad Claudio," he said after a bewildering selection of substitutions had contributed to Chelsea's semi-final defeat by Monaco in the European Cup in 2004.

While such self-deprecation endeared him to the fans and reporters, it wasn't necessarily admired by the Russian tycoon who was his paymaster. "I already have Abramovich's sword embedded in me," Ranieri said, long before he was sacked. The sentiments might have been shared by Burley, whose relationship with major shareholder Vladimir Romanov was a fractured one from almost the word go.

But don't mistake Ranieri's perceived amiability for a lack of backbone says Jim Duffy, the former Dundee manager who worked with the Italian for a spell when youth coach at Chelsea.

"That was a misconception," said Duffy. "He had a job to do, and if he was soft he wouldn't have had the success he's had. Once he mastered the English language, he was cute, and knew exactly what he was doing."

Ranieri has experienced other club owners who cast shadows as hulking as Abramovich. Ken Bates, the Russian's predecessor at Chelsea, and Jesus Gil, the autocratic owner of Atletico Madrid, did not suffer fools gladly.

Nor were they likely to suffer managers enduring even a mild spell of failure. In contrast to these characters Romanov might be considered a breath of fresh air for Ranieri.

Duffy denied that Romanov's hands-on approach to team matters will represent a problem for Ranieri, or any of his European-schooled ilk.

"Continental managers are used to having players bought for them by sporting directors," he said. "I can't understand the fuss about chairmen wanting to bring their own players in. It's only unusual if they start to say who they want to play.

"Someone like Ranieri has had experience of Directors of Football who'd go and get the players and then give them to the coach," continued Duffy. "Ranieri worked with Colin Hutchinson, who was the hands-on managing-director at Chelsea. And he dealt with Ken Bates and Jesus Gil, and Gil's son who was a major player at Atletico as well. I can tell you there is no more tyrannical figure in football than Ken Bates, who had fights with everyone - the English FA, the Press and his managers."

A canny Italian with a taste for the high life. It seems the marriage of the Tinkerman and Tynecastle is one that cannot fail.

Taken from the Scotsman