SPINELESS JAMBOS ON ROAD TO RUIN

IT LOOKS like Hearts have suffered a serious spinal injury - and I doubt they will be able to recover.

The Riccarton Three, who sat side-by-side at Friday's media conference to rubber-stamp tales of turmoil inside Tynecastle, are the backbone of the side.

They are the only reason the Jambos have been clinging on to any semblance of credibility.

When Steven Pressley, Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon came clean with confirmation that Hearts were a club in intensive care they weren't telling us much we didn't suspect or know already.

But with mutiny now on the agenda you wonder what will happen next.

Just when you thought the script couldn't get any stranger there was yesterday's clash with Dunfermline.

Owner Vladimir Romanov sent the club further into turmoil on Friday when he claimed he would sell the entire team if they didn't beat the struggling Pars.

It will be interesting to see what happens now after the 1-1 draw. The three rebels did their best yesterday to repair broken Hearts in a team performance that started well but fell apart alarmingly.

Gordon produced a superb save early on to deny former Hearts star Stephen Simmons.

Hartley did everything he could to make his team sparkle. And the roof would have come off Tynecastle had people's champion Pressley scored in the first half with a shot that whistled wide.

There was no anti-Romanov chanting at the game but the songs of praise have been put on hold.

Health issues clearly have to be addressed in Gorgie.

And it's the health of the club I'm talking about, not just the stress that has forced head coach Valdas Ivanauskas to take time out.

Incidentally, it was interesting to find out from former Jambos chairman George Foulkes last week that ex-manager George Burley turned down the offer of a fortnight's "leave of absence" shortly before he was sacked a year ago.

Had Burley taken the break that was being recommended by owner Romanov he would clearly NEVER have returned to the club after his sabbatical.

However, that was the preferred option to get rid of him rather than what actually happened - the strange sacking of an unbeaten manager and Foulkes' attempt to explain the inexplicable.

That shock announcement was made after Hearts played Dunfermline at Tynecastle at the end of October last year.

Twelve months on, yesterday's identical fixture followed another bizarre episode.

The Tynecastle team have been on a downward spiral since Burley (right) was punted. It's interesting to look at the team he put together and what has happened since. With one or two exceptions the side stayed the same as Hearts blasted out of the blocks at the beginning of last season.

Gordon in goal. A back four of Robbie Neilson, skipper Pressley, Andy Webster and Takis Fyssas.

In midfield you had Hartley, Julien Brellier and Rudi Skacel along with one of the two Lithuanians, Saulius Mikoliunas or Devidas Cesnauskis.

Up front it was Edgaras Jankauskas paired with Roman Bednar.

The dissenting trio of Gordon, Pressley and Hartley were big players then - and still are. Elsewhere it has been all change.

Skacel was a scoring sensation last season but the Czech international saw the writing on the wall and his frustration with the Romanov regime made it inevitable he would eventually quit.

Who knows whether Scotland defender Webster would have stayed had the club been under different management. But he was made an outcast when he failed to sign a new deal and effectively resigned from Hearts to join Wigan.

Right-back Neilson's improved performances in the last couple of years have taken him into the Scotland squad. However, every so often he's dropped - or "rested" - for no reason.

Promising though teenager Lee Wallace is at left-back the experience Greek international Fyssas brought to the back four seemed to be an important element in defence. Where has he gone?

Midfield anchor man Brellier has vanished as well. The Frenchman can't even win a place on the bench.

Yet his presence in the team let Hartley play the best football of his career.

Mikoliunas and Cesnauskis feature more prominently in the starting line-up now than they did then. Their nationality must be the explanation for that because they continue to make a minimal contribution.

The same could be said of fellow Lithuanian Jankauskas who has only rarely given glimpses of his talent.

Czech Bednar is at the other end of the age scale and showed his promise early this season with four goals in the first four matches. He hasn't scored since and his form sums up what has happened to the team. It's now a team and a club divided. The rift needs healed but it might be a gaping chasm that is already far too wide.

Taken from the Sunday Mail