Pressley has word of warning for Romanov

The Scotland defender is concerned that recent team selection has harmed the pursuit of second place in the Bank of Scotland Premierleague and, without laying the blame at any individual’s feet, the implication is that Valdas Ivanauskas, the caretaker coach, should be left alone to do the job by Vladimir Romanov, the maverick owner of Hearts.
The issue came to a head on Saturday when Hearts lost the Edinburgh derby to Hibernian and Andy Webster and Edgaras Jankauskas, key players throughout the season, were omitted altogether from the squad. They sat in the stand watching the 2-1 defeat at Easter Road. Two other principal players, Rudi Skacel and Julien Brellier, were left on the bench.

Hearts hold a four-point advantage over Rangers in the race for second place in the Premierleague with three games remaining.

“We have to ensure football politics don’t get in the road of success,” Pressley, who missed the match because of injury, said. “That is vitally important for the rest of the season.”

Ivanauskas refused to comment on the team selection after the Hibernian match. He is the third man that Romanov has put in charge of Hearts this season, after George Burley and Graham Rix were hired and fired.

Both managers were weighed down by speculation that Romanov had not given then a free hand in team selection. Indeed, the Lithuanian banking millionaire had to face a player revolt in February, when Pressley led a deputation to meet the owner after Rix told them he had not chosen the side that drew 1-1 away to Dundee United.

Pressley has become something of a Hearts figurehead over the past two seasons. The experienced defender has gone beyond the normal club captain’s role in disputes between the supporters and Chris Robinson, the former chief executive, over a proposed move to sell Tynecastle to land developers to clear a £20 million debt and move to Murrayfield, and even took over as caretaker manager after the sacking of John Robertson in April last year.

It is the situation of Pressley’s central defensive partner, Webster, that has caused most bewilderment among the Hearts support. The Scotland player has a year to run on his contract but recently turned down an extension offer and has now missed three successive matches.

Skacel is the club’s leading scorer but the Czech Republic midfield player has started only one of Hearts’ past four games, with reports suggesting that he is dragging his feet on making his loan move from Marseilles permanent.

In contrast, the two Lithuania midfield players, Deividas Cesnauskis and Salius Mikoliunas, have started more often under Ivanauskas than either of his predecessors, fuelling suggestions of favouritism from Romanov.

“To be fair to both of them, they have performed well in recent weeks and I think they merited their start,” Pressley told the Edinburgh Evening News. “We didn’t play particularly well in the first half and we scored our equaliser against the run of play. In the second, half, we had a lot of the play but then Hibs scored.”

Craig Gordon, Pressley’s club and international colleague, is convinced that Hearts will hang on to second place because Rangers will drop more points between now and the end of the season. The deposed champions failed to take advantage of Hearts’ derby slip-up by drawing 0-0 away to Celtic on Sunday in the Old Firm encounter.

More important, Gordon knows that if Hearts win all of their remaining games, there is still nothing that Rangers can do to stop them. “We know it is still in our hands,” the goalkeeper said. “We’ve still got the gap and I am sure Rangers will drop points. I don’t think there is a team in the top six capable of going to the end of the season without dropping something along the way.

“We are still right in there with a great chance of the Champions League place and I’m sure Rangers would much rather be in our position.”

Gordon’s own reflections on the choice of personnel for such an important derby match hinted at unhappiness — which he shares with Pressley and Paul Hartley, the Scotland internationals — at the absence of Webster. Gordon played behind a makeshift defence with Christophe Berra, Lee Wallace and Ibrahim Tall joining Robbie Neilson at the back, and the 23-year-old goalkeeper admitted that he regretted Hearts not being able to field a more experienced side for such a crucial match.

“I thought we played well as a whole in the second half but we were poor in the first,” he said. “We were maybe lucky to go in at half-time at 1-1 but in the second half there was really only one team in it.”