Ivanauskas gets back to old routine at Riccarton

HEARTS head coach Valdas Ivanauskas has restored his own training methods at the club this week following the turbulent reign of Eduard Malofeev.

Ivanauskas resumed control of first-team duties on Monday after taking a month-long sabbatical in Lithuania due to ill-health.

His first task has been to re-introduce his favoured practices at Riccarton to appease a largely-disgruntled squad.

Malofeev had overhauled the club's training programme last month before taking just three league points from a possible 15 during his short tenure.

He implemented exercises such as piggy-backs and wheel-barrow races and ordered the squad to undertake double sessions each Monday and Tuesday.

"People have different tastes and different opinions. Sometimes it takes a long time to get to know each other," said Malofeev at the time.

But with the veteran Russian having left Edinburgh to undertake coaching certificates in Russia, Ivanauskas has changed the approach once more.

The double sessions have been stopped and the routine favoured by the Lithuanian in the early weeks of the season has now returned as he prepares for the first match of his comeback at St Mirren this weekend.

Hearts begin their preparations for that encounter this afternoon at Stirling Albion's Forthbank Stadium, when they will field a strong reserve side against Falkirk.

Ivanauskas will be in attendance as first-team players including Mirsad Beslija, Edgar Jankauskas, Juho Makela, Michal Pospisil, Neil McCann, Jose Goncalves and possibly Deividas Cesnauskis are given vital match practice. Teenage winger Andy Driver is also expected to feature.

"We are looking for these guys to perform and give something extra for Saturday," Hearts assistant coach Stephen Frail told the club website. Frail has assumed reserve-team coaching duties from John McGlynn.

"At the end of the day you want to play, whether it is in the reserve team or first team. Today is a strong squad and they need to approach the game with the correct attitude. You need to have games.

"Last week Saulius [Mikoliunas] played in the reserves to get his confidence and Eduard thought he did particularly well. You saw the result on Saturday when I thought he did well."

Meanwhile, club sponsors Ukio Bankas have announced a trebling of their unaudited pre-tax profit. Ukio made just under £5.7milllion during the first nine months of this year, which is around three times their profit from the same period last year.

The bank, owned by Hearts' majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov, has identified premises to open a branch in Edinburgh in the imminent future. It has also recently agreed a £26m loan from a syndicate of western banks to help it make its mark across Europe.

Taken from the Scotsman