Neilson says Hearts are back on track for Celtic

Ewan Murray
Wednesday December 28, 2005
The Guardian

The Hearts defender Robbie Neilson believes his team's 5-0 victory over Falkirk on Monday proves the Tynecastle club have what it takes to maintain a presence at the top of the Scottish Premierleague.

Graham Rix, the former Chelsea assistant manager, produced easily the best performance of his fraught reign to date and the 25-year-old Neilson has expressed his delight at Hearts' timely return to form while admitting to concern in the dressing room over recent performances.

Celtic visit Tynecastle on New Year's Day and Neilson said: "We have more aggression and it sets us up nicely for the Celtic game. I don't know why we lost it, it's hard to explain but we were definitely struggling. Maybe the players thought they had made it already, I don't know. But it's a long fight and this hopefully sets us up again for the fight for the title."

Hearts are looking at potential recruits and the Benfica midfielder Bruno Aguiar will arrive at Hearts next week for a trial.

Meanwhile it has been revealed that the former Hearts chief executive Chris Robinson received £139,000 from the club in the financial year ending July 31. Robinson, a catering tycoon who was the subject of constant protests from supporters over his plans to sell Tynecastle for housing development, announced his intentions to leave the club in February but did not depart office until July and collected a higher salary than he had done 12 months earlier.

Included in his remuneration was a £30,000 compensation payment from the club despite him also receiving almost £870,000 for his shareholding from Vladimir Romanov.

Robinson has since returned to the fold as a paid consultant for Romanov relating to the development of Tynecastle, although Hearts have been at pains to stress he is not an employee of the club.

With Hearts' debt last recorded at £21.5m, they are now paying £1.1m per year in interest on their borrowings from the Lithuanian bank Ukio, the club's principal bankers, and the Halifax Bank of Scotland. That figure has risen by £200,000 from 2004. Romanov plans to revert Hearts to private company status next month but has yet to reveal any ideas to reduce the Edinburgh outfit's constantly increasing debts.

In advance of Sunday's keenly anticipated match, the Celtic manager Gordon Strachan has warned his side, who lead the Scottish Premierleague by four points from Hearts, that they will need to eradicate sloppy errors after requiring a late goal to defeat lowly Livingston 2-1 on Boxing Day.

"We all make mistakes and, if they're honest mistakes, that's all right," said Strachan. "We just have to work to eradicate them. However, if we can't eradicate them, then we reach the stage where we have to do something about it."

Taken from the Guardian/Observer