The Tynecastle revolt is being led by Steven Pressley, the captain, Craig Gordon and Paul Hartley. The trio of Scotland internationals called a press conference when Romanov told them, after yesterday’s training session, that they would be offloaded if Hearts failed to deliver a victory in their first game in charge under Eduard Malofeev, the man Romanov has put in charge of the side this week in the wake of Valdas Ivanauskas’s decision to take sick leave because of stress.

Sources close to the club claimed that Romanov met the players at their training complex at Riccarton and threatened to sell them to “Dunfermline, Kilmarnock, or some other team” if they did not win at home against the side sitting second from bottom in the Bank of Scotland Premierleague. The Lithuanian even vowed to send out a team of youngsters next Saturday against Celtic.

It appears that the patience of the Hearts players with the maverick millionaire has snapped after 18 months of turmoil behind the scenes. In that time, Romanov has sacked three managers, a chief executive and a chairman and recruited more than 30 players.

He admitted recently to picking the team, or trying to, which is what drove out John Robertson, George Burley and Graham Rix. Ivanauskas has been in the post for only six months and won the Scottish Cup and qualified for the Champions League. However, defeat by Kilmarnock last week leaves his team eight points behind Celtic in the title race.

Romanov went to Hearts in 2004 and saved them from bankruptcy, taking over a £20 million debt and transferring it to his own Ukio Bank in Lithuania. He then acquired almost all the shareholding. The Hearts supporters have deified Romanov but yesterday that status was under threat as fans’ websites spoke of a walkout today during the match at Tynecastle if Pressley and company do not play.

Malofeev was on Romanov’s payroll for some time before going to Hearts as a consultant in August. The former Belarus national coach’s replacement of Ivanauskas is supposed to be temporary, but after keeping a dignified silence after the exits of Burley and Rix last term, Pressley, Gordon and Hartley said in a statement that the past two years had been “testing for the players”.

“I have tried, along with the coaching staff and certain colleagues, to implement the correct values and discipline, but it has become an impossible task,” Pressley said. “There is only so much we can do without the full backing, direction and coherence of the manager and those running the football club.

“While publicly I have expressed the needs for unity, behind the scenes I have made my concerns abundantly clear. Morale, understandably, is not good and there is significant unrest in the dressing-room.”

Taken from timesonline.co.uk