INCOMPREHENSION from the assembled players greeted news of the Hearts line-up. There seemed no rational explanation for head coach Graham Rix omitting players who had been central performers throughout a title-chasing season.

Not a description of the now infamous scene at a team meeting on Tuesday afternoon, hours before a heavily-reshaped Tynecastle side drew 1-1 against Dundee United amidst a furore over Rix's admission to his players that owner Vladimir Romanov had picked the team. Instead, the episode occurred ahead of last weekend's Scottish Cup tie at home to Aberdeen, when the head coach is understood to have informed Rudi Skacel and Takis Fyssas: "I have to rest you but, if anyone asks, you've got the flu".

It was a request that sent shivers through the entire squad. "Up until Saturday, everything seemed fine, just as it should with Graham and team selection," one Hearts player told Scotland on Sunday. "Then something changed with what happened to Rudi and Takis, and no-one could understand why."

On reflection, what changed now appears obvious. In the week leading up to the 3-0 cup win, Romanov seriously ratcheted up his investment, and therefore interest, in his pet project down Gorgie way. The Lithuanian businessman delivered on a promise to be ambitious in the transfer market, financing deals worth in excess of £2m. But the upshot of the cash-splash was not merely 11 new players arriving in the January window - it was also Romanov feeling sufficiently emboldened to make waves in the footballing domain in order that he derived value for his money.

Although reassured he would have autonomy over on-field matters when appointed head coach in November, Rix wasn't so naive as to believe he would be given a completely free hand. From early in his tenure, Romanov made it plain to the Englishman that the first-team prospects of Saulius Mikoliunas, Deividas Cesnauskis and Samuel Camazzola had to be promoted, and at least one of the three included in the senior side whenever possible. The pronouncement did not come in the form of an ultimatum but a strong request. Rix could live with that level of interference. He knows the game and could comfort himself that more illustrious coaches have found themselves at the mercy of boardroom whims.

At Real Madrid, for instance, a succession of those directing operations from the technical area have been denied the right to drop the club's "galacticos" by president Florentino Perez. Then there is the case of AC Milan, where not so very long ago none other than club president and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demanded Carlos Ancelotti change his favoured 4-3-2-1 system to a 4-4-2.

But the Hearts head coach, as he told this newspaper in an interview late last year, prizes honesty between himself and his players above all else. And when told by Romanov that it was not up for debate that he field certain players and relegate others to the bench on Tuesday, Rix felt that honesty would be compromised were he not to come clean on how a bizarre team selection had been arrived at.

It wasn't so much that six changes from the previous Saturday were imposed on him. The catalyst to blow the gaff on his owner's meddling was the diktat that Andy Webster and Robbie Neilson must be unused substitutes, except for all but the gravest emergencies. The selfsame Webster and Neilson, it should be remembered, that had been pillars in a Hearts backline boasting, by far, the best defensive record in the country. Not even Rix's old club Chelsea contemplate rotating their defence.

Yet, at the home of a Dundee United revitalised under Craig Brewster, Romanov decreed Slovakian new signing Martin Petras would debut in place of Neilson, while youngster Christophe Berra was elevated at the expense of Webster. It seems logical to assume that Rix then believed it was imperative to come clean for fear of destroying his credibility with players he had worked hard to bring onside.

"Graham told us that he wanted to be straight with us and explain exactly what was going on," revealed the Hearts player so perplexed the previous weekend. "He said Mr Romanov had decided on the team and the substitutes and was even calling the shots about who came on and who came off. He then said to the guys who were left out that he was sorry, but there was nothing he could do about it."

Rix must have known his revelation that the club's owner was de facto manager for the Tannadice trip wouldn't remain in-house. But he was still probably surprised that the team meeting had hardly broken up before agent Charles Duddy appeared to be telling all and sundry about the injustice committed against his client Webster. Initially, that seemed to place Rix in an impossible position. In the long run, however, it might strengthen his hand. If, of course, the Lithuanian's megalomania - and his actions can be adjudged as amounting to nothing less - does not extend to dispensing with Rix's services.

On Tuesday night, in the face of being told not to by Romanov coaching appointment Valdas Ivanauskas, Rix hauled off Petras after 57 minutes and restored Neilson. The Hearts head coach is therefore unwilling simply to be his paymaster's patsy and equally unwilling to surrender a glorious opportunity to lead Hearts to a Champions League place and Scottish Cup success.

Considering he failed in a bid to become manager of Crawley Town shortly before arriving at Tynecastle, Rix can hardly be blamed for eating dirt at present. Clearly, his hope is that he can somehow establish an understanding with Romanov that prevents him continually having to gulp down mouthfuls of the stuff.

"It is a great job and a great club and I have had worse moments in my life," he said of the past week's shenanigans - the "worse moments" line an oblique reference to the jail sentence that makes the Hearts job an opportunity for professional redemption he could never have envisaged.

Romanov knew that when taking Rix on. It was perhaps a major reason he did. But instead of proving an easily manipulated figure, Rix's handling of the Hearts owner when at his most insufferably overbearing may serve to demonstrate that the head coach himself has a capacity to manipulate. As a consequence of his candour with his squad, captain and team shop steward Steven Pressley last night met with Romanov to seek assurances that Rix would be allowed to do his job instead of merely the Lithuanian's bidding. Romanov, for all he appears to have a destructive bent at times, surely did not amass a personal fortune of around £200m in banking without being able to distinguish between good business practice and bad business practice. As happened when George Burley departed in September, the team would be destabilised if Rix was to be forced out now. A surefire consequence of that would be to severely hamper the prospect of at least securing the runners-up spot in the Premierleague that gives a Champions League berth.

Yet, Liutauras Varanavicius, a non-executive director of the Tynecastle club, hardly suggested that the Hearts powerbroker would ever seek to avoid poking his nose in while last week attempting to offer a harmless explanation as to why "when Mr Romanov is doing something he is really involved in everything".

"Maybe it is some cultural difference in understanding as he is not pushing his ideas - he is just presenting them," the Lithuanian said. "In my opinion, he is leaving the tactics and picking the team to the coach. He is not saying this player must play or that player must play. His proposals are limited to saying a certain player must be allowed to rest for the next match."

Isn't that merely a roundabout way of decreeing who plays?

When I interviewed Romanov just before Burley left in September, he declared that "there must always be a conflict of opinions in a successful venture." When I suggested that his approach might be akin to appointing a builder to construct your house and then telling him what cement to use, his response could be read as betraying a contempt for football coaches.

"If you are building a house and you want it to stand for a thousand years, it is sometimes better to build it yourself," Romanov said. "As Tsar Peter the Great once said, half of the builders in Russia should be in jail. If it is your house, you need to maintain control over what goes on."

The question is whether, in the Hearts owner, builder and demolition man are one and the same.

Taken from the Scotsman