Gordon stays as Hearts add two more on loan from Kaunas

HEARTS' attempt to offload Craig Gordon failed to come to fruition last night and the goalkeeper is likely to remain in Edinburgh until the end of the season.

The Scotland international was excluded from the team to face Rangers last weekend after being told Hearts were in the midst of negotiating his transfer.

Despite a bid from Fulham and a 4million (£2.7million) offer from Spartak Moscow, no club has matched Hearts' valuation.

Gordon, 24, made it clear this week he would leave only on his own terms, and the possibility of a move to Russia was remote to say the least. He yesterday underlined his commitment to Hearts for the remainder of the campaign, but is likely to leave in the summer. Gordon said: "Despite everything that has been said, I am 100 per cent committed to Hearts for the rest of the season to help the team and then we will see what happens. I signed a new contract with Hearts last season and that was an indication of my feelings for the club."

Contracted to Hearts until 2009, Gordon has made no secret of his ambition to move on to bigger challenges later in his career, but had no desire to be hurried out the door at Tynecastle. The Gorgie club signed two new goalkeepers from Lithuania recently, presumably to compensate for the expected departure of Gordon. Eduardas Kurskis and Arnas Lekevicius will now vie with the Scot and Steve Banks for the No1 jersey.

Gordon has been excluded from the first team three times in recent weeks following a disciplinary hearing. The goalkeeper was part of the so-called "Riccarton Three" who expressed dissatisfaction at the way Vladimir Romanov was running the club. The other two members of the trio, Steven Pressley and Paul Hartley, have been offloaded to Celtic.

Hearts, meanwhile, were waiting on clearance last night to bring in two more players on loan from FBK Kaunas. Defender Tomas Kancelskis, who played for Hearts as a trialist in the pre-season friendly against Osasuna at Murrayfield and has been training at the Gorgie club this week, has agreed a deal until the end of the season. So too has his team-mate Linas Pilibaitis, a 21-year-old midfielder.

Kancelskis, 31, captained Kaunas to the championship last season and is a Lithuania internationalist. Pilibaitis is creative player, and the pair's likely arrival will take the number of players Hearts have on loan from Kaunas into double figures.

The Lithuanian side are likely to supply Hearts with even more players following a change in management this week. Romanov, who controls Kaunas, has sacked coach Eugenijus Riabovas and replaced him with the little known Belarusian Vladimir Kurnev.

As recently as three months ago, Riabovas was due to become stand-in coach at Hearts, but he has now paid the price for Kaunas' failure to go beyond the quarter-finals of the Commonwealth Cup in Moscow last week. The tournament features clubs from countries which comprised the former Soviet Union. Riabovas is expected to stay on as Kurnev's No2. Kurnev admitted yesterday that part of his job at Kaunas will be to prepare players for a move to Tynecastle, with Belarusian compatriots, Vyacheslav Hleb and Oleg Strakhanovich, likely to be groomed for a summer move to Scotland.

The two MTZ Ripo players guested for Kaunas in the Commonwealth Cup, and were expected to return to Belarus this month. They now look set to sign for Kaunas with a view to moving to Hearts in the close season. "My task is to prepare them well for the [Belarus] national team and for a possible move to Hearts," said Kurnev.

Minsk-based MTZ Ripo are the third club controlled by Romanov.

Taken from the Scotsman