Robson has change of Hearts

Sir Bobby Robson was the favoured candidate of the Hearts board to replace George Burley - sacked as manager 10 days ago - but is believed to be reconsidering his position following the latest twists of events at Tynecastle.

George Foulkes, the chairman, and chief executive Phil Anderton were ejected from their positions on Monday by the majority shareholder, Vladimir Romanov.

With the club's fans perplexed, Romanov moved yesterday to fill the vacuum of information. Roman Romanov, his son, faced the media at Tynecastle in an attempt to reassure supporters that their club were not on the verge of implosion. "Sometimes, in order to continually progress, it is necessary to take action that may seem unpalatable at the time," he said in a statement.

"However, we only ever act with the long-term interests of Heart of Midlothian Football Club. We were forced to take the decisions made in connection with the manager and chief executive's departures. In the short term, many people will ask 'why?'. However, we ask our fans to judge us on the results that we are determined to bring to the club.

"We would ask fans to look back 12 months and judge where we were then, and where we are now, in terms of where we play, our position in the league and the undoubted quality of our players. Do not view us on the next 12 hours, 12 days, 12 weeks but rather the next 12 months."

Romanov said the club were continuing their search for a new manager and high-level talks with potential candidates for the chief executive's post would be held in London later this week. He stressed that redevelopment plans for Tynecastle were progressing on schedule and money would be made available to strengthen the team. Romanov also promised to meet supporters' groups in the next few days to outline his plans. "The team have performed admirably under difficult circumstances and I would like to assure them that we will have a top-class manager in place as soon as possible," he said.

"I am also well aware of the backing the fans have given the team and it is only right this is acknowledged at the highest levels within the club - as such, I am working to secure that the fans' voice is heard in the boardroom." Meanwhile, it emerged that Foulkes was first made aware of Vladimir Romanov's intention to sack Anderton last Friday, although he was not told of the reasons for this. As Romanov senior tried to get his chairman's approval for Anderton's dismissal over the weekend, Foulkes warned the chief executive what was in the wind.

"I'm still regretting that we were bounced into sacking George Burley," Foulkes said. "I think that was a very big mistake. I know Bobby Robson was lined up as one of the front-runners but I wouldn't be surprised if he was having second thoughts."

Anderton has remained silent since Monday because he is assembling his own account of life at Tynecastle under the Romanovs, for use in any settlement negotiation. The Daily Telegraph understands that Anderton has compiled a list of his accomplishments for the club and charted repeated interference by the Lithuanians on the Hearts board.

At the fateful board meeting on Monday, Foulkes asked repeatedly for the grounds for the chief executive's dismissal, but got no reply. The four Lithuanian non-executive directors - Sergejus Fedotovas, Julija Goncaruk, Liutauras Varanavicius and Roman Romanov - voted for Anderton's sacking, while Stewart Fraser, the finance director, voted against.

In a coda which struck veteran Labour politician Foulkes as particularly surreal, Vladimir Romanov - wealth estimated at £200-£500 million - closed the proceedings by making a speech which began: "Fellow workers…"

Taken from telegraph.co.uk