Baltic coach feeling the draught as wind of change blows

Stewart Fisher reports on the growing pressure on Ivanauskas, despite Romanov picking the team

JOHN McGlynn must be getting that feeling again. Tynecastle’s career caretaker, who has officially filled a vacancy in the dug-out after a managerial departure at Hearts on no fewer than four occasions, may just have eased himself back on to standby mode after a Uefa Cup first leg collapse against Sparta Prague on Thursday night which leaves Vladimir Romanov’s grand ideas of European empire building in tatters.

Having won just one and lost five of their last seven games, Hearts under Valdas Ivanauskas are now in the midst of arguably their most significant stumble since the Lithuanian first took charge. And there have been a few.

With Hearts, however, it is often frustratingly necessary to suspend the usual, rational rules of analysis. Because having an apparently popular owner who openly admits he signs most of the players, not to mention picking the team on occasion, actually only serves to deprive the supporters of a straightforward cause-and-effect relationship with their club.

It makes it distinctly problematic, for instance, to discern exactly how much blame should be put at the door of Ivanauskas, and impossible for those who have encountered him not to have a measure of sympathy with his plight.

Judging by the jeers which rang out from the Murrayfield crowd at the withdrawal of Mauricio Pinilla and Mirsad Beslija around the hour mark, the equation seemed simple and kneejerk enough for most, but up to then neither player had been remotely able to prevent Sparta exerting a worrying measure of control on the match. Things didn’t get much better afterwards, but neither did they get much worse.

What can at least be said with some clarity is that the Lithuanian’s record as a touchline coach, despite his Scottish Cup win, is absolutely comparable with that which got Graham Rix sacked.

Ivanauskas has won 10 and lost eight of his 22 games in charge, while Rix won nine of his 19, but lost just four. All, of course, suffer by comparison with George Burley, whose 10 games unbeaten at the start of last season will haunt all those who come after him.

That record is reason enough for the former FBK Kaunas coach, who was also removed from that previous coaching position by Romanov, to feel under the most pressure he has ever done ahead of this afternoon’s tricky visit to the SPL’s bottom side Motherwell.

“This is the most pressured I have felt in my career,” he admitted last night. “The pressure is very strong, especially psychologically, and not only on myself but on the team.

“Last season the balance was probably better than it is now but we will get the balance. Every single game is of such huge, vital importance and that places even more pressure on the team.”

That in itself is part of the problem. After the game, when an ashen-faced captain Steven Pressley eventually spoke out, he questioned whether the amount of that good old-fashioned commodity called character was up to meeting the increased expectations that the club are so keen to heap on themselves.

If the pressure is such a problem, why did Ivanauskas subject another 18-year-old, Jamie Mole, to the experience?

“With success comes a higher level of expectation and I said prior to the start of the season that we’d have to show we can handle that,” said Pressley, another who appeared powerless to prevent Sparta running over the top of them.

“The Old Firm do it year after year. But in recent weeks we’ve not really handled that.

“I think within our dressing room we have to concentrate on getting our season back on track,” he added.

“And that starts at Motherwell, which is a massive game. We’ve had two disappointing results, against St Mirren last Saturday and against Sparta Prague on Thursday, so Sunday has become a very big game in our season already. It has been tough over the past couple of weeks for us and we need players out there who want to fight for this football club. It’s going to take some big performances and characters. And I’m sure over the coming weeks we’ll put things right.”

Whether that includes salvaging this particular tie is another matter. Pressley was not conceding anything on Thursday night, but neither was he in the mood to clutch for straws.

Hearts were so directionless – a far cry from the juggernaut that began last season under Burley, or even the side that performed creditably in Athens – that it was easy to forget that a two-goal reverse, nor a three-point deficit in the SPL table, are hardly irreversible should the club return to fortune.

Sparta Prague were an accomplished side – winger Daniel Kolar and midfielder Ludovic Sylvestre in particular shone – but Hearts hardly did too much to make them look bad.

“We’ve given some excellent performances in Europe in my time but that’s maybe the most disappointing I’ve experienced,” said Pressley, who after the defeat to St Mirren refused even to use the Murrayfield factor as an excuse.

“I don’t think any of us performed near the levels we’re capable of, it was a very disappointing display. We need a mammoth display now. It’s certainly possible but it’s going to take a remarkable performance over there to go through. It’s not over because you never know in football, but it’ll take something special.

“Every game’s different but we’re just disappointed because we took a lot of encouragement from the second leg performance in Athens where, although we lost the game, for 75 minutes we played extremely well,” he added.

“This was a big let-down. And a big let-down for our supporters . We gave them very little to cheer about. It's difficult to pinpoint a time in the game where we ever managed to get any real momentum in the team.”

Unfortunately for their beleaguered Lithuanian manager, the momentum at Hearts is heading in another direction entirely.

Taken from the Sunday Herald