Tynecastle's tsar calls the tune though Hearts don't like the lyrics

THE ultimatum that, according to reports, Vladimir Romanov issued to Hearts players on Friday would have been familiar to anyone who has been on the club's coaching staff these past 18 months. I know from my time as director of football at Tynecastle that the 'win the next game or else lose your job' line tripped freely from the owner's tongue.

Last week, he treated the players in the same manner as those he has placed in, sometimes nominal, charge of the team. When I worked with head coach Graham Rix, the Lithuanian would not just demand that we won, but that we did so with style or else we would be out of the door. He carried through on his threat.

I am slightly disappointed it has taken the players' statement, read by captain Steven Pressley on Friday, that outlined their unrest over the running of the club, for what is happening at Hearts fully to hit home. I didn't see the same furore and sense of outrage when coaches were sacked. Now that the players have been placed in a similar position to coaches who lost their jobs, they are biting back. To be fair, Pressley did go to see Romanov to plead successfully for Graham Rix to be retained after a defeat by Aberdeen.

But I am perplexed that it is only now that searching questions are being asked on a much wider scale of the entire operation at the Gorgie club.

I remember Romanov using the term "subordinates" to describe him and his crew members in his days as a submariner before going on to state how he couldn't allow "subordinates" at Hearts to dictate to him. That is how he sees people. They must follow his orders.

He had no truck with the notion that football decisions could be arrived at through discussions or group deliberation. If you did not play his team, exactly how he envisaged it, and the result and performance weren't to his satisfaction, he would never let you forget.

I can't ever remember him admitting he was wrong on any aspect of the football operation he made his thoughts plain on. He simply wouldn't countenance that players could make mistakes and that you couldn't guarantee they would play to their maximum ability every week. If his way differed from yours, his way was always better.

Pressley, Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon have discovered he will dismiss the concerns of senior international players in as abrasive a manner as he will senior coaches.

I know Romanov is sometimes described as misunderstood and that much of what he says is actually meant tongue in cheek. Certainly, he has a sense of humour. But if he is not being serious he should be a card player because he has the best poker face I have ever seen. He certainly won't be throwing in his hand now and backing down in his dispute with the players.

Neither, however, is he anything less than an astute businessman which means he will only carry through on his threat to sell such as Gordon, Hartley and Pressley if clubs meet his valuation of them. Equally, I cannot see him paying handsome salaries to these key assets for themto play in the reserves. He is determined to derive value from his expensive payroll, which is in part what the detested rotation system is all about.

I have the greatest admiration for Pressley, Gordon and Hartley. Their contributions to Hearts in the most challenging circumstances these past few seasons have been astonishing. I admire their bravery too in going public with their disgruntlement. But I do not believe it was necessarily the right move.

They might have been better keeping any issues in-house and demanded transfers if Romanov consistently refused to address them. At that point they could have gone public with their reasons for wanting moves and the fracturing of the club would have been delayed till it was unavoidable.

The bottom line is that as long as Romanov owns the club, his decisions, however incomprehensible, will be final.

Taken from the Scotsman