Rix goes on spending spree to bolster Hearts' title bid

However, the Tynecastle shopping spree did not include Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, whom Middlesbrough offered to offload to Hearts, according to reports. The Edinburgh club felt that the Holland striker’s wages of £40,000 a week were too rich for their blood. “Hasselbaink’s name was suggested to us but we were never going to take him. It was a non-starter,” a Hearts source was quoted as saying in the Edinburgh Evening News.

Makela and Beslija, however, were unveiled yesterday, along with José Goncalves, a defender, and Bruno Aguiar, a midfield player. Along with another of Graham Rix’s signings from last week, Chris Hackett, the Oxford United winger, they were paraded to the media as a job lot. All four have signed 3½- year contracts and the Hearts head coach signed eight players in total during January to bolster his team’s bid for the Premierleague title.

While the arrivals of Makela and Beslija are straight-forward acquisitions for cash, Gonclaves and Aguiar came cloaked in the increasingly puzzling status of “on loan from FBK Kaunas”. The Lithuanian club are also owned by Vladimir Romanov, the majority shareholder of Hearts.

Gonclaves was available for sale from his Swiss club, FC Thun. Aguiar had just been released by Benfica. Quite why Hearts needed to use FBK Kaunas to give them a player who was a free agent until two days ago is something that may attract further scrutiny from the Scottish Premier League and Uefa.

It is not the first time that Hearts’ owner has used his other club to recycle a player who was a free agent. Edgaras Jankauskas came to Tynecastle, via Kaunas, after leaving FC Porto last summer. Jankauskas is also on loan and should he, Gonclaves or Aguiar move on, Hearts would not receive any transfer fee, which would go to Kaunas.

Gonclaves, a Portuguese under-21 cap, was reportedly available for £700,000. The Kaunas part of Romanov’s football empire will have had to meet Thun’s demand, while Hearts have made a remarkable outlay for a club that is more than £20 million in the red, despite those debts being transferred to Romanov’s Ukio Bank in Lithuania.

The most notable of Rix’s four signings is Beslija, who has earned 40 caps in midfield for Bosnia-Herzegovina. The 26-year-old spent four years in Belgium with Genk and turned down Dynamo Moscow and Sunderland to join Hearts.

Aguiar, 24, also plays in midfield and earned under-21 caps with Portugal. Makela, 22, scored 33 goals in 41 games for HJK last season and was on his way to FC Basle until Hearts intervened. Hearts were also pursuing two Czech players — Martin Petras, a defender from Sparta Prague, and Ludek Straceny, a forward, from Marila Pribam — as the window was about to close at midnight.

Rais M’Bolhi, the French goalkeeper who has been on trial from Marseilles, was in contract negotiations yesterday with Hearts. Leaving Tynecastle is Dennis Wyness, who extended his loan deal at Inverness Caledonian Thistle until the end of the season and will sign a pre-contract agreement with the Highland club before joining permanently on a two-year contract this summer.

However, Hearts’ perfect day was spoilt by the three-match ban handed to Paul Hartley by the SFA for kicking Ross Wallace in the match against Celtic on January 1. Hartley received an automatic red card for the offence — which means he is suspended for the Tennent’s Scottish Cup fourth-round tie with Aberdeen on Saturday — and had 12 points added to his record, which takes him over the threshold and he will be suspended for two additional Premierleague games.

Aberdeen have signed Ferne Snoyl, a left-back, on a six-month loan from Feyenoord, while Motherwell have brought in Abel Thermus, a forward, who began his career at AS Monaco, from Creteil-Lusitanos. Another Frenchman, Eric Skora, completed his move to Kilmarnock from Preston North End. Skora, 24, a midfield player, had a loan spell at Rugby Park in 2004. Kilmarnock have also secured Lindsay Wilson, the Australia player, on loan from PSV Eindhoven.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk