Chick Young's view

Hearts might not win the title, but they have a right good chance in any game of Scrabble. Xenophobia will get you enough points to secure a Champions League place on its own.

Tynecastle sports director Alex Koslovski has branded some of his own fans racist because they jeered Lithuanian players in the defeat by Rangers.

He may be right, he may be wrong. But it might well be a lot less sinister.

For example, it could of course be triggered by the fact that Saulius Mikoliunas looked like he was in the wrong movie when he was brought on as substitute in a central striking role and that Nerijus Barasa looked like he had been introduced to a football for the first time.

In any case, it was another new way for Heart of Midlithuania to apply the self-destruct button.

Vladimir Romanov has gone through a succession of coaches
Koslovski, in a post-match BBC interview, blamed Craig Gordon for the loss of the game's only goal, blind to the fact that Nacho Novo's shot took a deflection off Christophe Berra. And, in any case, how can you blame the Hearts goalkeeper for anything?

His big hands have held the club together through the storm. He has spoken with dignity. He has been a voice of reason in the asylum.

This week, Hearts appointed their seventh coach in the less than two years since Vladimir Romanov first embraced control of the club. That is just scandalous.

They have come and gone like waifs of the storm, with the revolving door on the manager's office at Tynecastle spinning giddily. Good luck to Eugenijus Riabovas. But, if I were him, I would not yet put my name down for the Christmas party.

Through all this, Steven Pressley remains the peoples' champion. Put a beret on that bearded head and you may have an uncanny likeness to Che Guevara.

Maybe he and Paul Hartley should ride like Che and Fidel Castro in an open tank down the Gorgie Road. In the current fantasy existence of Heart of Midlithuania, stranger things are happening by the day.

I have a feeling, you know, that we haven't heard a tenth of the nonsense and insanity that is currently being engineered deep in the heart of Tynecastle. But it is clear that the road to salvation will be a little difficult to navigate.

Vladimir Romanov holds all the aces. In fact, he is holding Hearts by more than the key playing cards. When he squeezes, it will make the eyes of anyone attached to the club, by employment or emotion, water.

Steven Pressley has spoken out against instability at Hearts
The debt increases and his bank accrues more interest. There is not, to my knowledge, an individual with the marriage of desire and financial clout who can ride to the rescue.

When it all triggered - and as late as the cup win in May - there was no telling the supporters that this may not have been all it seemed, that somehow it didn't all stack up.

It was like a father telling his teenage son that it might be folly to be seduced by a beautiful girl flaunting a bit of cleavage who might be intent on gold-digging.

Romanov's millions and the pledge to stay at Tynecastle were his plunging neckline.

Hearts and the Lithuanian entrepreneur were always going to be uneasy bedfellows after the first throes of lust had been satisfied. And the divorce could cost one half of the partnership, as it usually does in these circumstance, the house.

For all their courage and dignity in this, it isn't actually about Pressley and Hartley and Gordon, it is about a club who have thrived for more than a century and who, from this distance, don't actually look odds-on favourites to repeat that feat.

If Hearts don't sort this out, they are heading for football Armageddon. Still, that's another word that'll get them a right few Scrabble points.

Taken from the BBC