Sun is rising in the east

THE seismic shift in the balance of power in the SPL was nicely, if provocatively, illustrated by Paul Hartley last Wednesday night. Having earlier scored the goal that made grown men weep, the little devil of the Tynecastle midfield was asked for his thoughts on the final-day trip to Ibrox, a once-incendiary prospect suddenly defused and rendered harmless by the driven penalty in midweek that settled the Champions League race once and for all.

Now that there was nothing left to play for, how many Rangers fans did he think would turn up? "Probably none," was his mischievous reply. And what would the score be? Laughing now, Hartley simply said: "I don't care," The indifference made you wince for Alex McLeish.

The long goodbye comes to an end today and there must be relief all round. There is no aspect of the McLeish years that has not already been covered, no analysis of his difficult relationship with the fans or of his legacy that hasn't been detailed over and over. All that's left to restate is that he was a fine, if under-appreciated, manager of Rangers in tough financial times, that he won with grace and lost with dignity and that he cared. Above all, he cared.

You cannot have been around him this past season and not have been impressed by his stoicism. Can you imagine what it must have been like for him to oversee a team that went ten games without victory, as Rangers did at the end of October, all of November, and the beginning of December? The abuse was hot and heavy and the temptation to lash out was surely strong. McLeish bit his lip and vowed to make it better. There was a sad desperation in what he said, but his longing to improve things was impressive at the same time. Nobody can ever doubt the strength of McLeish's will.

The strength of his team is another matter. Today, Rangers will face a Hearts side that will be weakened out of necessity. Having enjoyed one big day on Wednesday, they'll have another on Saturday when they play Gretna in the Scottish Cup final. Steven Pressley is out of action this afternoon and there is also talk of Hartley, Craig Gordon and Edgaras Jankauskas being rested while Rudi Skacel (the contract refusenik) may be given the Andy Webster treatment and left in the stand to contemplate his future. They may have a number of their mainstays missing and they may even approach the game with the kind of apathy that Hartley indicated - though the Romanovs, as you'd expect, forbid it - and yet they could still win. The fact that they're not wholly bothered whether they do or not tells you everything about how things have changed.

Roman Romanov, in an attempt to gee-up his players, described today as "a statement game for next season" but Hearts made their statement to Rangers a long time ago. We know Vladimir is not going anywhere in a hurry and that his fondness for football appears to be turning into an obsession. Earlier in the season, he said that finishing second in the SPL would be nothing to write home about for a club with notions of grandeur - the other day he was rabbiting on about his vision of playing Barcelona in the Champions League final - but his delirium on Wednesday was impossible to miss. He was intoxicated by the occasion. Lord only knows how he'll react if Hearts win the Cup. Pressley had better be quick as, if he doesn't reach the podium sharpish, he might find his guvnor has already lifted the pot.

Paul Le Guen will have begun his work by then and what an amount of work he has to do. Compare the Rangers and Hearts line-ups these days and Hearts are superior in about seven positions and their back-up is more convincing. Le Guen will need to be every bit as good as we think he is to turn things around at Ibrox, for over-investment, then under-investment and some wrong investment has put Rangers in a terrible fix.

With so much business to conduct, Le Guen has been linked with half of Europe since committing to the job in mid-March. By our calculations, four goalkeepers, eight defenders, six midfielders and five strikers have, apparently, interested him at various points in the last two months. Probably only a handful are legitimate targets but the feeling is that Le Guen must sign a minimum of eight players in order to stand a chance of quelling the uprising from the east. Hearts say they will add two or three to their squad. The right two or three could make them champions this time next year.

Today is a phoney war, its only relevance being the departure of McLeish and the grim fear among Rangers fans that an under-strength Hearts, with their focus elsewhere, could still come to Ibrox and get a win. McLeish's farewell has already been ruined but, even in this most troubled of seasons, that would be an insult too far.

Taken from the Scotsman