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| <-Page | <-Team | Mon 13 Nov 2006 Falkirk 1 Hearts 1 | Team-> | Page-> |
| <-Srce | <-Type | Herald ------ Top | Type-> | Srce-> |
| Eduard Malofeev | <-auth | ROB ROBERTSON and DARRYL BROADFOOT | auth-> | Mike McCurry |
| 70 | of 080 | Andrius Velicka 65 Latapy 84 | L SPL | A |
Romanov to fly in for crisis talksROB ROBERTSON and DARRYL BROADFOOT November 16 2006 VLADIMIR Romanov is preparing to return to Scotland, possibly as early as this weekend, to hold talks with Hearts officials and players as the crisis at Tynecastle threatens to tear the club apart. The majority shareholder will fly in from a Bosnian business trip for a series of meetings in the capital designed to deal with the unrest among the first-team squad and supporters. There is a chance he may fly in before Hearts' match with Rangers on Sunday but if that does not happen he will definitely come to Edinburgh next Friday for talks with senior club officials. He would then take in the match away to Inverness Caledonian Thistle, 24 hours later. The development came on a day when Walter Smith, the Scotland manager, said he hoped Steven Pressley's omission from the Hearts team was temporary and not punishment for criticising Romanov's regime. The answer to that question will become clearer when Romanov finally arrives in Edinburgh. It will be his first public appearance in Scotland since the row over "the Riccarton three" erupted. Pressley, Craig Gordon and Paul Hartley read out a statement critical of the way in which the club was being run, a move which angered the Lithuanian. Hartley was relegated to the bench against Falkirk last Monday and Pressley stepped down from first-team duty after learning that there had been a plot by Lithuanian players in the squad to oust him from the captaincy. Pressley has turned to the players' union for help and a number of other top Tynecastle players are about to do the same. Pressley has met with Fraser Wishart, the chairman of the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association, who is on hand to help any other players who require support. The Hearts captain has kept a dignified silence on the plot to oust him as captain which has led to supporters suggesting they will boycott Tynecastle on Sunday unless Pressley is reinstated. With the club's coaching staff and management refusing to adhere to their media responsibilities, there has been no confirmation that Pressley will return to the team against Rangers. In fact, rumours abound that Gordon could suffer a similar fate if the back-up goalkeeper, Steve Banks, can prove his fitness. If that proves to be the case it will be perplexing news for the Scotland manager, Smith, who will watch events with interest in the coming weeks. Pressley, Gordon and Hartley are cornerstones of Scotland's Euro 2008 qualification bid and while Smith was reluctant to become embroiled in club affairs at Hearts, he expressed his wish that all three remain fit and active in preparation for the next qualification double-header against Georgia and Italy next March. "It is not an easy situation to comment on until you can be reasonable clear about the reasons why Steven was left out," said Smith. "What I would say is I would be disappointed if he was left out purely because of the statement he made. "It was made 10 days ago and made in the best interests of the club." None the less, there is a real danger of the worst-case scenario unfolding at Hearts, with all three understood to be so disillusioned that they might seek transfers during the January window. If Romanov persists with the hard-ball approach, at least two of the three could be banished from first-team duties, just as Andy Webster was after refusing to agree a new contract before joining Wigan Athletic. Pressley, 33, and Hartley, 30, will have negligible residual value and are expendable, but in Gordon, Hearts have one of the most accomplished goalkeepers in Britain and their most prized asset. To relegate him would be counter-productive to Romanov. Smith has already had to contend with Christian Dailly, James McFadden, David Weir, Gary Naysmith and Darren Fletcher featuring only sporadically for their Premiership clubs and is keen to avoid any further casualties. "In an ideal world I could be doing with all my players featuring regularly for their clubs but the reality is we have a situation with a number of players who do not start regularly," he said. "The Hearts players have done really well for us over the period but these days a lot can happen to players, not just at Hearts." Smith also revealed that Scotland's B squad are almost certain to face Finland at Rugby Park on February 7. The national manager is keen to make the B internationals a regular fixture on the calendar and is expected to have the next match dovetail with a senior side get-together. "We have a settled senior squad and we would hope to keep the same group involved with the B squad as far as we can," he said. "It is an important part of the development." Meanwhile, Calum Elliot, who is currently on loan from Hearts to Motherwell, hopes the controversy at Tynecastle is resolved by the time he returns to the club in January. "I go back in January from my loan stint at Motherwell and hopefully everything will have been sorted by then," said Elliot, who also lent his support to Pressley yesterday. "I have worked with Elvis for over a year, and if he did pull out because of that then it must have been bad," he said. "He has held the club together over the past year-and-a-half and I hope everything works out okay for him. He has given so much for Hearts and I hope he gets treated with the respect he deserves."  Taken from the Herald |
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