VALDAS CAN BE HEARTS SAVER

GUS MacPHERSON reckons the return of Valdas Ivanauskas as Hearts head coach is the perfect tonic for the Tynecastle outfit ahead of their clash with his St Mirren side this weekend.

Ivanauskas returned to the hot seat yesterday after a month-long break with a stress-related illness and he'll be in charge at Love Street on Saturday.

Hearts failed to win any of the six games they played while Ivanauskas was away, with the club's rulers, fans and players at odds with each other.

But MacPherson has backed the Lithuanian coach to unite everyone again and help Hearts get their season back on track.

The Love Street boss said: "Hearts directors will run their club as they see fit and good luck to them.

"It's their decision to bring Valdas back in and personally I think it's a good one. I don't know Valdas well, I've only met him for a 15-minute chat at a coaching convention in Gleneagles.

"But everyone I've spoken to in the game speaks very highly of him and his return will be a major boost for Hearts.

"It will be like a new boss coming in but the players will also feel that they're working with someone they know well and it's time to get back to doing the business the way they were before.

"We only know what we read in the papers but it looks like they brought him back and restored Steven Pressley as a way of settling things again and the club looks to be stabilised again.

"They have very, very good players. Throughout everything that's been going on at Hearts I've not seen many people criticising the players.

"A lot of them were unknown when they arrived in Scotland but they are a strong, quick side and some of them like Edgaras Jankauskas have played at the top level.

"Hearts are a massive club with a huge squad but no one can deny that they haven't had the sort of results they expected lately.

"But that comes back to my theory that there isn't a lot between the clubs in this league. If you can get a few results together, it can make a huge difference. It changes the whole picture and while Hearts will be very determined to win, we're no different so it should be a cracking game."

MacPherson had just six outfield players at training yesterday after a virus and a series of knocks struck down several of his stars.

Billy Mehmet and John Sutton were told to stay away amid fears their virus could spread across the Love Street dressing room. But both are expected to return on Saturday as St Mirren look to end an seven-game winless streak.

MacPherson said: "It was always inevitable that we'd find ourselves in a difficult period at some stage because of where we came from.

"Only three years ago we were eighth in the First Division and the main thing occupying our minds was survival.

"It's only now that we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel financially and that was always going to be something that affected the playing sense of this club.

"But we have done the one thing I always knew we would do this year - we have competed.

"Our aim has been to stop rival teams playing, then impose ourselves on the game and it has worked well most of the time.

"When we won 1-0 at Tynecastle in September it was a good performance, although it wasn't our best this season.

"To win at places like Ibrox, Celtic Park and Tynecastle you need breaks and we got them that day."

Taken from the Daily Record