Stress and strain under Romanov takes its toll

THE unexpected news that an unspecified health issue was the reason for Valdas Ivanauskas' meeting with Vladimir Romanov in Lithuania yesterday - the head coach of Hearts will take two weeks off to recover - deserves to be treated with respect. Everyone in the game must wish the man well and a speedy recovery.

Ivanauskas says he will be back in a fortnight. The treatment of illness, however, is not always an exact science. If he hasn't made a full recovery at home in Lithuania by early November, will supporters of the club then learn his absence has been extended to the end of the year?

Whatever is ailing Ivanauskas, no-one would be surprised if recent events at Tynecastle had taken a toll on the coach. Football managers are no strangers to the effects of serious stress levels, and the history of the game is peppered with incidents of ill-health that can often be linked directly to the constant tension and pressures that are considered to be part of the job. In most cases the victim has recovered and returned to the game after a break. A few have not been so lucky, and the health warning has come too late.

But if football management is a perilous occupation at the best of times, working for the Romanovs offers a flavour of how the French nobility felt in the 18th century as they waited for the guillotine to fall. Hearts have been managed by 25 men over the last 132 years: five of those coaches have worked for Romanov since 2004.

While a Scottish manager might have opted to battle on and attempt to do his best whatever the stresses of the job, it's possible Lithuanians have a different mind-set on these matters. Ivanauskas believes he must be at the top of his mental and physical powers in order to fulfil his duties at Tynecastle and Romanov appears to have readily accepted that point of view.

If there are cultural differences between Scots and Lithuanians which means something is often lost in translation at Tynecastle, no-one could dispute the job of managing Hearts is now among the most pressurised in Scottish football. While the managers of Rangers and Celtic have to meet the expectations of passionate supporters and are expected to win every week on the domestic scene, both Gordon Strachan and Paul Le Guen are at least free to make team selections and, within budget restrictions, recruit their own players.

The job of head coach at Hearts is more complicated than that. Since he provides the funds to mount a challenge to the Old Firm, Romanov expects to have some say in team matters as well as dictating an agenda for the club which the head coach must implement to the best of his ability. Executing and defending policies which may not be of your own making would leave anyone feeling stressed.

It is no wonder that Ivanauskas failed to turn up for a scheduled post-match press conference on Saturday, an event that would have exposed him to a grilling from the media about the changes to team selection and the influence of Romanov.

On a positive note, at least Romanov seems reluctant to lose a loyal servant who is trusted by them and popular with the club's supporters. If Ivanauskas had left Hearts, it's hard to imagine too many other coaches ticking the same boxes at Tynecastle.

Life has not been easy for Ivanauskas in recent weeks as the club's selection policy took on a life of its own. Whether he was the architect behind making 59 changes in 11 games, or just the man who implemented that unpopular policy, Ivanauskas was in the firing line.

Since Hearts were eliminated from European competition, it's inarguable that the need to rest players and change the side around has evaporated.

While part of the justification for the scale of the rotation policy may have been to put players in the shop window who could then be moved on for a profit, the truth is that the current air of confusion surrounding selection at Hearts - and the damaging consequences of a series of incoherent performances - has done no-one at the club any favours.

Too many players can cause almost as many problems for a football club as too few. All leading coaches and managers (with the possible exception of Liverpool's Rafael Benitez, who changed his team for the 97th successive match in defeat against Manchester United on Sunday) build successful sides on a strong core of ever present players.

This season at Tynecastle, only Craig Gordon, with 17 starts, Steven Pressley, 17, Christophe Berra, 16, and, bewilderingly, Saulius Mikoliunas, on 13, could be considered regulars. Paul Hartley, of course, would have started more than ten games but for injury. On the other hand, individuals who were considered automatic choices a year ago flit in and out of the side irrespective of fitness. Takis Fyssas has begun ten league and cup matches, Julien Brellier just nine.

Incredibly, Saturday's reshuffled starting line-up brought the number of changes in the last 11 games to a staggering 59.

While the supporters' web sites are awash with ideal team selections, in a sense the identities of the preferred XI matter less than the opportunity for a group of footballers to play together on a regular basis. It was noticeable against Kilmarnock that a sweeping second-half fight-back never materialised.

The mood of resolve which typified team spirit last season was replaced in this game by a clear sense of dislocation.

Hearts have fallen short in a footballing sense on a number of occasions this season, both in Europe and the Edinburgh derby. But many wondered if it was the deterioration in the team's mental strength against Kilmarnock which forced Ivanauskas' hand on Saturday evening and precipitated yesterday's urgent meeting with Romanov in Lithuania.

Who knows if the head coach spoke to the owner at yesterday's meeting about how team unity was being undermined by all the chopping and changing? But in giving the head coach two weeks off to recover, it will be fascinating to see if Hearts continue to rotate the players in his absence.

In the meantime, the experienced Eduard Malofeev, another former Kaunas manager, will take charge of the first team against Dunfermline Athletic at Tynecastle on Saturday as Hearts once more find themselves adrift on another sea of confusion.

Taken from the Scotsman