EDGARAS UPSET WITH TYNECASTLE SNUB

By Ronnie Esplin, PA Sport

Hearts striker Edgaras Jankauskas believes the Edinburgh club may have jeopardised their chances of reaching the Champions League group stages by moving their European campaign to Murrayfield.

The Jambos will take on AEK Athens at the home of Scottish rugby on Wednesday in the first leg of their third qualifier after beating Siroki Brijeg 3-0 on aggregate in the previous round.

The first leg against the side from Bosnia-Herzegovina was played at Murrayfield in front of 28,468 fans - almost 10,000 more than could have watched the game at Tynecastle - enabling Hearts' to cash in on the fixture being moved from their own stadium in Gorgie.

The club originally wanted to play the qualifying rounds of the tournament at their spiritual home but their playing surface was smaller than UEFA's stipulated criteria for Champions League matches.

On Sunday Jankauskas, who is fighting his way back from a hamstring injury, was in the Tynecastle stand to see and hear the Jambos fans cheer their heroes on to a 2-1 victory over champions Celtic.

And it is that sort of backing the former Porto and Benfica forward feels will be missing at Murrayfield.

He said: "We have fantastic fans as they showed on Sunday against Celtic.

"So I would prefer to play at Tynecastle because then you feel that you have double the support.

"At Murrayfield the fans are maybe too far away from the pitch.

"We have a chance of beating AEK at Murrayfield but we would have a bigger chance if we played them at Tynecastle."

Jankauskas believes the Greeks, with the help of their notoriously volatile supporters, will offer up a sterner test than Siroki did in the last qualifying round.

He said: "It's very important that we don't concede on Wednesday and also score a goal because in Athens they will be waiting for us!

"I wouldn't say it was frightening but it is different when you play in countries that are further south like Greece.

"I played against Panathinaikos in Athens when I was with Porto. It's a tough place to go.

"We drew at home and beat them in Greece but it was a very tough game.

"Their stadium only held 20,000 but they had very passionate supporters.

"But we respect them - we're not scared of them. We will take a lot of confidence from the win against Celtic and give everything we have."

Taken from sportinglife.com