PLAYERS MEET OVER HEARTS CRISIS

Hearts captain Steven Pressley has called a players' meeting for Wednesday to discuss suggestions that owner Vladimir Romanov rather than head coach Graham Rix is picking the team.

Pressley was adamant the players want Rix to stay at the club and insisted the players wanted to find "a peaceful solution" to the ongoing crisis.

Reports have suggested that Rix is no longer in full charge, however he was more prominent than Lithuanian Romanov in Tuesday's Bank of Scotland Premier League match against Dundee United at Tannadice.

The Tynecastle side, who made 11 additions to their squad last month, showed six changes to the team which beat Aberdeen 3-0 on Saturday including the surprise omission of Scotland defender Andy Webster.

After the 1-1 draw, Pressley stopped short of confirming that Rix was now effectively powerless.

But the skipper admitted another day of turmoil had led him to arrange a meeting to discuss where the Hearts players go from here.

He said: "It has been a very difficult day for the players.

"We have had to endure a lot, time and time again at this football club.

"I must stress we are 100% behind our manager.

"He is a great coach and a lovely man and we are fully supportive of him.

"I don't want to go into the finer details of what happened but I think everyone is aware of the events.

"But what I will say is that I will meet with my fellow players tomorrow and we will make a decision on our next move.

"I think it's important that we are all together in this and any decision we make will be made as a team.

"The mood amongst the players now is of confusion. We are slightly confused about the whole situation and we sympathise with our manager and I'm sure you will see in days to come that some action will take place.

"There are a number of options. I don't want to discuss them at this stage.

"We certainly hope that Graham remains as our manager and I hope he doesn't walk away.

"Hopefully we can find a peaceful solution to this and as captain that's what I will be endeavouring to do."

Taken from sportinglife.com