Hearts need drastic surgery and Romanov must wield the scalpel

It's high time that Hearts' long-suffering fans were given something to smile about by the club's Lithuanian overlord
Ewan Murray
January 4, 2008 12:15 PM

It would have seemed daft for anyone, even the most optimistic supporters of Heart of Midlothian, to believe Vladimir Romanov's promises of European domination when the Lithuanian banking tycoon took over the club in 2005. But few could have predicted the similarly spectacular fall from grace suffered by Romanov's team in recent months. What the owner does about it is building up to one of the most important decisions in Hearts' 134-year history.

Fans who have brushed aside Hearts' recent inadequacies with the "we have been in far worse states" line are starting to back-track. Without a league win since November 11 - they have lost six in a row - Hearts are in their poorest run of form since 1979, when they really were in the doldrums and crowds were evaporating from Tynecastle as the team suffered relegation for only the second time. Gretna's troubles - and, perhaps more importantly, the fact they appear unable to comply with the Premier League's stadium criteria - should save Hearts from demotion this time around but third bottom of the table is hardly where Romanov and his mini-army of football staff expect Edinburgh's maroon half to be.

So action will be taken. Romanov has announced he will finally appoint a "British-style" manager in the coming weeks in a bid to halt an alarming slide.

Of the names rumoured ready to step into that breach, there would appear only one viable option. Jim Jefferies, who led Hearts to their first trophy success in 36 years, in 1998, appears the ideal candidate to eradicate the malaise and, in the words of the caretaker manager Stephen Frail, remove an "inherent" lack of discipline and leadership which is prevalent at the club. Jefferies' return would, in many ways, replicate Walter Smith's successful appointment at Rangers a year ago as the Ibrox club looked to halt the slump created by Paul Le Guen.

A lifelong Hearts supporter, Jefferies would surely feel the lure of Tynecastle too strong to resist amid a widely-held theory he has taken Kilmarnock as far as is possible in the current climate. Those who remember the troubled closing months of Jefferies' last Hearts post should recall that he was eventually reduced to communicating by Post-it note with Chris Robinson, the controversial former chief executive, such was the level of internal disharmony.

Tales of players throwing fines on the dressing room floor and failing to obey even the most basic of rules at Hearts' training academy have become commonplace in the last 18 months; that the club's first-team squad is of exorbitant proportions both in terms of size and wage bill ensures team spirit is almost impossible. Any new manager would have to immediately rectify the lack of discipline that saw three players dismissed against Dundee United on Wednesday - 26 of them have seen red in only 2½ seasons. It is also debatable whether the abilities of Christophe Berra, the 22-year-old captain, would have been worthy of inclusion in a pre-Romanov team. Experience, like discipline, is sadly lacking.

Romanov has brought many positive things to Scottish football and his proposed £50m redevelopment of Tynecastle should be the most notable of all. Yet in the current climate a large, loyal yet bewildered Hearts support who campaigned so impressively and, it must be said, correctly for the removal of Robinson are in danger of becoming battle-weary.

Without Romanov, Hearts would currently be playing at the 68,000 capacity Murrayfield Stadium, the home of Scottish rugby, without having generated anything like the £9m which was received at the start of this season for goalkeeper Craig Gordon, and with little hope for the future.

Romanov has the power to realise an altogether different scenario. It is high time, for those supporters' sakes, that he did so.

Taken from the Guardian/Observer