Fans stage protest but Romanov stays away

THE depression deepens. Yesterday's 1-0 defeat at home to Rangers left Hearts in fifth place in the SPL, and stretched their run without a win to seven games.

Vladimir Romanov, Hearts' majority shareholder, failed to show up for the match, avoiding certain fierce criticism when it emerged that Steven Pressley, the club captain, had been left on the bench. Pressley sat alongside Robbie Neilson, and was given a standing ovation the first time he got up to warm up. By contrast, the names of wing-back Nerijus Barasa and substitute Saulius Mikoliunas were booed when the squads were read out before the match, and little they did during the game elicited a positive reaction.

Afterwards, a crowd of around 200 at its height protested outside the main entrance of Tynecastle for about an hour. They chanted "We want our captain back", and lambasted Romanov.

Some supporters had originally planned to stay behind in the stands after the match and demand that Romanov explain to them his recent actions. These have included the omission from the team of both Pressley and Paul Hartley, who along with Craig Gordon form the so-called Riccarton Three, who delivered a statement criticising the way in which the club was being run.

In the absence of the owner, however, the ground emptied as normal, and the protestors met up below the boardroom windows. Romanov may be at the ground this week, but no-one who works for him could confirm a date of arrival. Given he already dictates policy at the club, it is hard to see how his appearance could change things for the better.

A couple of decent results would improve the mood of the supporters, and the departure of Eduard Malofeev, the interim head coach, may help. The veteran manager has failed to win a game since he took over from Valdas Ivanauskas, who is on sick leave, and his tactics as well as team selections have appeared at best naive. He is replaced as of today by Eugenijus Riabovas, who becomes Hearts' seventh head coach in the 21 months that Romanov has been in charge. Riabovas, the Kaunas coach, is on secondment to Edinburgh indefinitely, and has gone on record as saying he believes he can make a difference. But the problems he faces would appear to be the same that Malofeev had to deal with, first among them being Romanov's decision to select the team on grounds other than footballing merit.

Hartley was skipper for the day, but after the match said he had no intention of seeking the captaincy in the longer term. "I'm not the captain," the Scotland midfielder said. "There's only one captain at the club and that's Steven Pressley," echoing the words in a Sunday newspaper of Gordon, who had said he wanted Pressley, Hartley and Neilson in front of him when the teams lined up.

"I would never want the armband anyway," Hartley continued. "If Steven's injured or not playing, then I'm vice-captain and I'll take the armband. But there's only one real captain.

"He's been a great captain for the club, and you want your best players in the team, no doubt about that. He's our main man, a fantastic leader. The sooner he gets back, the better. And the sooner everything gets sorted out, the better it will be. We want to move on, keep progressing and challenging for honours.

"[Vladimir Romanov] will have stuff to say to us, but it's important that everything comes out in the open and we start to talk. We all want to push in the same direction, and the only way to do that is for us to get our point across and for Mr Romanov to get his point across."

Yet again, the only member of the coaching staff to be entrusted with the job of getting the management's point of view across was Alex Kozlovski, who has the title of sport director. "Of course we are disappointed, because we were considering to win this game 100 per cent," the interpreter said. "It was a game of equal opportunities, and we didn't deserve what we got today."

Asked to comment on the demonstration after the game, he added: "The fans were unhappy before this game. So they continue to be unhappy."

Kozlovski was then invited to comment on the adverse reaction to Barasa and Mikoliunas. "Mikoliunas maybe [was booed] because to come out as a substitute is always not very easy. But Barasa, I'm surprised, because I think it's a little bit discrimination. Barasa played very well. It's because he is Lithuanian that people shout at him."

When it was pointed out that Andrius Velicka, another Lithuanian, was not booed, Kozlovski said that was because Velicka scored goals, which seemed to be an acceptance that the fans judged players on how they performed, not what country they came from. He disagreed, however, when it was suggested that Romanov favoured some players because of their nationalities. "These players, because they are Lithuanians, are not in favour with anybody."

As his English is not excellent, he was asked to clarify. Was he accusing the fans of discrimination?

"I'm not accusing anything. I'm saying it looked like [discrimination] if you blame players because they are in favour, because they are Lithuanians."

Kozlovski could not say whether Pressley would be considered for selection for the next game, at Inverness. Romanov's senior appointees at the club, however, are understood to have insisted that there were irreconcilable differences between owner and captain.

Gordon is so far the only one of the protesting trio to have escaped the wrath of Romanov, but one radio report claimed that Malofeev had initially blamed him for the loss of the goal. There was a debate after the match about whether Jamie MacDonald, the reserve goalkeeper, had been told to get ready to replace the Scotland No 1, or if he was just warming up as usual.

If Malofeev had held Gordon responsible, he would surely have changed his mind once replays showed that Nacho Novo's shot had taken a deflection. On the club's website, Kozlovski spoke of the "unlucky goal that we conceded".

Taken from the Scotsman