The Disposable Hero of Tynecastle

Revolutions are, by their very nature, cyclical movements that all too-often tend to follow well-trodden, traumatic paths. Just as with any revolution, in Gorgie initial euphoria has given way to disillusionment and suspicion, as the bold promises of world-class players, Champions League Football and trophy hauls have all vanished into thin air. And just as with any revolution, there must sacrificed heroes too – the vanguards of success must be purged for expediency, removals we are told are for “the ultimate victory of the revolution”. In France there was Danton and Marat, in Russia there was Kronstadt, while in Gorgie there has been Burley, Foulkes, Anderton and now, in perhaps the ultimate purge, the team captain who, only last week, was described as the very “cement of the team”… 

From the moment the Holy Trinity of Stephen Pressley, Craig Gordon and Paul Hartley faced the media at Riccarton with their prepared statement many feared what repercussions might befall them. I believe they – being arguably the 3 key players at the Club - hoped that by making such a public show of discontent, they would finally put an end to the damaging interference the Club hierarchy were having on team affairs. Perhaps they thought that such a declaration would force the Club’s hand into reassessing their management style, perhaps they thought that they would not risk the ire of the supporters further by daring to take action against them. Unfortunately, the events of the past few weeks merely show that, as long as the Romanovs reign at Tynecastle, none of the playing staff are beyond reproach. Elvis and Hartley were dropped from the starting line-up, while Gordon was alleged to have been nearly substituted against Rangers, after the interim interim interim Coaching team of Abbott and Costello….. sorry, Malofeev and Koslovski, ridiculously blamed him for conceding Novo’s deflected winner. If the rumours of an attempt to usurp Pressley as captain – with allegations that there was a plot hatched by the Club hierarchy to take a vote-of-no-confidence in him – are true then it is scandalous behaviour and is not worthy of this football club. For a player like Pressley to have the conviction to make a public stand against his superiors shows that he clearly had concerns for the direction the Club is going. Yes, since the Romanovs took control at Tynecastle the players’ wages will no doubt have increased dramatically and so it could have been all too easy for them to sit back and take their pay cheques without saying anything.  Pressley’s pride at lifting the Scottish Cup was there for all to see and he probably thought it was going to be the start of a successful period at the Club. One could also argue that the statement was an intrinsic action too, for as well as caring for the Club they clearly care for their own careers too. The three of them no doubt realise that with a squad of the size and talent that Hearts possess – and given the mediocre standard of the league in general - we should be at least challenging, if not winning, trophies in Scotland. Any players want to win trophies and they must have a fear that they will be unable to do so at Hearts if there is continual interference from above.

The parting of the ways was probably a financial issue too. Five more appearances for Hearts would have triggered a clause in Pressley’s contract that would have obliged the Club to extend his playing contract by 2 years, and grant him a lucrative testimonial. Given that he probably has only those 2 years left in him as a top-class player, it would be cheaper for the Club to find an excuse to get him off the books. Also, given his age, Pressley is also a less sellable asset than either Gordon or Hartley, both of whom could command 7-figure sums in transfers. Financially, Hearts can afford to release Pressley, while politically it means they can purge themselves of a strong dissenting voice. Even if it wasn’t a wholly altruistic act, issuing the statement should be commended and not condemned as so many fans appear prepared to do so. Yes, Pressley may have had an inglorious start to his career at Tynecastle when he first joined the Club, but he improved immensely as a player and seamlessly grew into the role of Club Captain. During the recent troublesome seasons at Tynecastle, Elvis has been imperious in trying to hold the squad together, to pull them through difficult times, and so for the Club to treat such a fine servant in such a way is shameful.  

No one really knows what is going on behind the scenes at Tynecastle, and that is one of the key problems facing supporters at the moment. The silence of genuine information from the Gorgie Izvestia is thunderous. By not informing the fans, they are merely playing into the media’s hands; supporters are being forced to take whatever nonsense is being spouted in the Daily Retard as being a true reflection of events because the Club are staying silent. We don’t expect to be told everything that goes on in the boardroom, but we need – and deserve - to be better informed than we are at present. It’s not good enough for Board members to breeze into town and give hollow answers to Supporters Groups’ questions (such as the recent meeting with Vlad and the G-10), or print pearls of Baltic wisdom, such as Roman’s enigmatic “The cure might be painful, but at least we have the diagnosis”, in Saturday’s Matchday Programme. Having seen a brief copy of notes taken at said meeting, none of the questions seemed to be answered satisfactorily, with issues relating to Stadium redevelopment, and transfer policy remaining unresolved. 

Clarification on the coaching structure and team selection would be a start. When Iain Brines blew the full time whistle at the Caledonian Stadium he mercifully not only brought to an end the latest dour match in Hearts faltering season, but also brought to an end the miserable tenure of Eduard Malofeev as HMFC’s head coach; now it would appear that the unfortunate fans of MTZ Ripo will have to endure his retro brand of route one football. Yes, Malofeev has had a successful career in the game, but given that his last real achievement as a coach was over 20 years ago, was it any surprise he failed to reignite our season? The team performance at Parkhead aside, none of the matches Malofeev presided over showing any real signs of cohesion or fluency; even then, we paid for his overly-cautious approach and still could have won at Parkhead had we not thrown on an extra defender for the best player on the day (Bruno) and tried to eke out a 1-nil victory. He also masterminded possibly the most insipid Hearts performance in an Edinburgh derby we’ve had the misfortune to witness. Players were unsurprisingly confused as he could only communicate with them through translator – and top of every discriminatory Jambos’ Christmas card list – Alex Koslovski, while descriptions of his training sessions sound something straight out of the Red Army P.T. manual. Fair to say, Tovarisch Malofeev won’t be getting inducted into the Hall of Fame anytime soon. I dare say, the players probably heaved a sigh of relief when Valdas Ivanauskas returned from his sabbatical in Lithuania, but, despite what the Hearts propaganda machine might say, it remains to be seen if he is the panacea of our ills. Certainly, Saturday was a start and we certainly looked a lot more comfortable than we ever had under Malofeev, but let’s not kid ourselves that everything is okay. For Valdas to get our Season back on track, he’ll need to be given the opportunity to pick a balanced team on a regular basis, unhindered by the hierarchy. The “scientific” approach to selection of the starting XI is another moot point. If rumours are to be believed, the Club apparently now use a statistical programme originally used by baseball teams in America, which takes cold statistics to evaluate players’ value to the team. So, taking Barasa as a case in point, though he’s arguably of dubious quality, the Lithuanian coaches base his selection on statistical data gathered by this computer programme – i.e. it wouldn't matter if Barasa has only made 4 passes and Brellier 54 in a game, if Barasa completes 75% of passes he’ll be deemed better than Brellier, who might complete 60%. The programme works with Baseball, due to the simple nature of the game, but there are so many other factors in football that, if true, then it seems a questionable way to select a starting XI. 

At present the first team squad is unbalanced, both in terms of personnel and quality. Certainly, we could do with a couple of quality additions, however, the Club should not get carried away and bring in a virtual new team's worth of players as they had so last January; we took in too many players and, as a result, the team remains unbalanced – for example, how many strikers or forwards do we seem to have on the books and compare that with how many players can play right wing or right midfield.  Ivanauskas rightly pointed out earlier this season that we cannot afford to flood the squad with players who will not add to the overall quality of the team. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see what role the latest loan signings from Kaunas will play, if any. Certainly, one relative newcomer to the Club who could well add to the quality of our strikeforce – if he’s ever fit, that is - is Mauricio Pinilla. The on-loan striker from Sporting Club de Portugal, made his belated debut against the Caley Jags at Tynie, and looked pretty impressive from my lofty position in Section G. Tim Vickery, the BBC’s esteemed South American football expert certainly believes that Hearts could have a potentially genuine world-class player in the form of Pinilla. A protégé of Ivano Zamorano, the young Chilean possibly made the mistake of moving to European football too soon, for he has struggled to settle at any one club. Looking a danger in the box, Pinilla also coped well with the physicality of the Scottish game and it was encouraging in the few games he has played to see him trying to play on as much as possible, as opposed to hurling himself to the deck as is the want with some of his colleagues at the Club. But, again, because of the lack of information from Tynecastle, fans are concerned we never see the Chilean again, as the Press run stories rumouring his potential departure for Calcio.

The Press… Ah, yes, Vlad’s friends from the Fourth Estate are still having a somewhat fractious relationship with HMFC. There is a danger that we might start to become as paranoid as the average Old Infirm fan, for just because an article is vaguely critical of Hearts it does not make it anti-Heart/anti-Romanov/anti-Lithuanian/xenophobic. In fact, there are times when the Press are perfectly entitled to be critical; for example, we deserved the criticism after the Rangers defeat at Ibrox because - as anyone who was there will testify - we were extremely poor. We also deserve the criticism being thrown our way now because, with a new intrigue or more scandal appearing by the week, the Club is in danger of becoming a farce, a tabloid soap-opera as opposed to a football club. However, having said that, there are times when you have to question the motivation behind some articles and reports for sometimes the timing of certain revelations regarding the Club appearing in the Press is a little too convenient - that "exclusive" about Paul Hartley allegedly describing Rangers (pretty aptly, some might say) as "orange b*st*rds" being a case in point. The fact that these alleged comments were made nearly 10 years ago and in a fanzine - fanzine humour being traditionally pretty irreverent and close to the bone - just goes to show that gone are the days when journalism's primary concern was to actually inform the public; now, it's all about circulation figures and trying to maximise sales with spectacular reportage. 

I’ve seen worse Hearts teams on the park before, and I’ve seen us play worse football than we have recently. Football is still pretty meritocrical, and if you’re not good enough you will get found out. You can stand that, can’t you? However, what makes the current situation so hard to bear is that the whole farrago is self-inflicted – rather than our usual nemesis of bad luck, it is largely down to bad judgement from within. Certainly, given the political environment Vlad hails from, he would consider it the norm for all aspects of life to be run in an autocratic manner, and so one can possibly understand the mindset he operates in. However, this isn’t a Baltic regime and he will have to accept that he can’t just supplant his same model of autocratic management from Kaunas into Tynecastle. After suffering all the machinations and posturing under the Pieman’s stewardship, we Jambos are a pretty cynical lot and so the Club would do well not to take our continual support for granted. If the current Board maintain that they really care for the Club then failing to attend either the inaugural Hall of Fame Dinner, or the Remembrance Sunday Memorial Service at Haymarket, is a peculiar way to go about it. The Club need to take care, lest they turn their Revolution into a Civil War. 

Here’s hoping for better times in the New Year, eh?

Merry Christmas!

J.D.

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