Marius Zaliukas's goal earns draw for 'critical' Hearts at Inverness

Inverness Caledonian Thistle 1

Tudur-Jones 19

Hearts 1

Zaliukas (pen) 90+0

Ewan Murray at the Caledonian Stadium
The Observer, Saturday 10 November 2012 15.43 GMT
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In the wider context, the late claiming of a draw by Hearts at Inverness barely looks relevant. What it does prove, nonetheless, is that the Edinburgh club's players have not had any fight knocked out of them by an off-field crisis.

Hearts have lurched from financial problem to financial problem at various stages over the past 40 years but the present one must not be underestimated. If £450,000 is not found by close of business on Thursday to pay a tax bill, the club will be wound up. Even if that hurdle is negotiated, Hearts are seeking close to £2m from supporters to meet running costs until the end of this season.

The Hearts fan base has already responded to their club's desperate pleas. Next Saturday's meeting with St Mirren, providing Hearts last that long, looks like being played at a sold-out Tynecastle, with about £200,000 raised between Wednesday and Saturday morning. The Scottish government has held discussions with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs with a view to assisting in the Hearts scenario; those who appreciate black humour may point out that divine rather than political intervention would be more welcome.

In Inverness, Hearts deservedly picked up a point courtesy of a battling second-half performance. For their travelling fans, there was an illustration that nobody in maroon and white has yet given up.

"We just try to take care of the football side of things as professionally as we can," said the Hearts manager, John McGlynn. "We are very, very grateful to the supporters for what they have done. Everyone realises this is a very critical situation that we're in. But there is a lot more positivity because of the response from people to the situation the club is in. The priority is to get this game against St Mirren on next weekend."

It has also emerged that Hearts have rejected a £500,000 immediate payment from Rangers as the balance on two players sold to the Ibrox club. That figure would be less than what is actually due. Debate about how Hearts have ended up in such a mess is legitimate. For now, though, their priority is survival until the end of the campaign; the Scottish Premier League is amongst the external groups who will also be praying for that. Unquestionably, Scottish football benefits from a strong Hearts.

Mismanagement, primarily linked to overspending on player wages, looks like being the damaging legacy of Vladimir Romanov's ownership despite the fact that Hearts were already in a perilous state when the Lithuania-based businessman took them over, in 2005. Ironically George Burley, who managed Hearts briefly in the heady early days of the Romanov era, took in this Highland fixture. A cruel reminder, perhaps, of happier times.

The Hearts board point out that, without Romanov's funding over the summer, the business would not have lasted this long. Romanov himself has been quoted in Lithuanian media this weekend, pointing out the struggles he has had meeting wage costs at the basketball club he owns in his homeland.

Consensus in Scotland is that Romanov has the capacity to meet any of Hearts' bills when the reality may actually be otherwise. As with so much at Tynecastle, nobody genuinely knows. Intriguingly, key figures at Hearts who have always been closely associated with Romanov now publicly speak of him as a more remote, almost unconnected figure.

Romanov was nowhere to be seen as Owain Tudur Jones sent Inverness ahead with a wonderful long-range shot. In an utterly dismal first half, that was the only ray of light.

Hearts enjoyed long spells of territorial dominance in the second period, but that was undermined by the bluntness that has damaged them all season. Unsurprisingly, then, it took a penalty to restore parity; Tudur Jones upended Callum Paterson and the Hearts captain, Marius Zaliukas, celebrated his 29th birthday by slamming home.

Taken from the Guardian/Observer