Ivanauskas seeks Hearts win tonic

Valdas Ivanauskas believes Hearts problems can be solved by taking three points at St Mirren in the Scottish Premier League at the weekend.

Days later, a three-man delegation consisting of skipper Steven Pressley, Craig Gordon and Paul Hartley caused uproar when they revealed "significant unrest" in the dressing room.

The club have since failed to win any of their six matches under stand-in coach Eduard Malofeev.

After a home defeat by Rangers, around 200 Hearts fans gathered outside the main stand to protest against Romanov's handling of the Edinburgh club.

Sport director Alex Koslovski branded Hearts supporters racist for booing the Lithuanian players during the defeat before retracting the accusation the following week.

And amid the general confusion in Gorgie, the club announced the appointment of another Lithuanian coach, Eugenijus Riabovas, who had been due to start at Tynecastle before the end of the month.

But Ivanauskas, speaking with the help of an interpreter, believes a victory in Paisley on Saturday will bring the feelgood factor back to Hearts.

He said: "I feel very well. I needed that time off for personal reasons but now I'm back and I feel good.

"I was always confident that I would come back.

"The doctors told me not to follow events and I only saw two games - against Celtic and Rangers - and the results weren't the best.

"But there is not much work needed to be done. The only thing we need is three points and we are looking forward to the St Mirren game.

"I want players to get some self confidence and get the pleasure of playing again."

Asked why he had come back to a post that had caused him health problems, Ivanauskas said: "This is my job. It's my personal decision to come back.

"I know that it's going to be hard but I am confident I will be here all season.

"Not too much needs changing apart from our league position. "We need to win games."

Among a series of questions which were either lost in translation or Ivanauskas chose to side-step, was the issue of whether Riabovas would be joining him at Tynecastle in the future.

He said: "At the moment, I am the head coach and we are looking to get three points against St Mirren.

"Stephen Frail will be my assistant coach from today."

Romanov appeared to go some way to placate the angry Hearts fans when he made a statement at the weekend saying he wants "70%" of the club's players in the future to be Scottish.

But Ivanauskas

was reluctant to get involved in the numbers game.

He said: "Every good team has a lot of foreign players, you see that in Germany, Italy and England and it is normal.

"It doesn't matter about 70% or 50%, we need good players and, for me, it doesn't matter which country they come from.

"I was in the same situation when I played in Germany and it is difficult.

"But every player has the chance to play for Hearts this season and they all have a future here."