Honesty From Hearts?! 

Well it’s been an awful long time coming, but it seems that we might have at last been given some truth about the Hearts Head Coach role from the board. 

When asked at yesterday’s AGM if the new Head Coach will have a free reign over team selection , chairman Roman Romanov said:

‘Maybe a coach will get 50 or 60% control, but definitely not 100%. 

At least this makes a change from the usual bull about the coach having total control over team matters and every decision being made being his. 

I am not happy about the coach not having full control one little bit, as I think it’s nigh-on impossible for a football club to seriously challenge for honours when the team is effectively being managed by money-laden fans of the game, not experienced football people.  But at least this admittance should prevent any more cringeworthy press conferences featuring our coach desperately trying to make excuses for why ‘he’ made a particular substitution or dropped a top player for seemingly no reason, even though he had nothing to do with it.  This way we’ll all know for a fact that others are culpable, even if we secretly knew already. 

The biggest worry now though is, even if the Romanovs are determined to try and make a success of Hearts by doing it their way (and make no mistake, this is the way things will be done from now on), how can they seriously expect anyone of any real credence in the game to come near Hearts?  You can flash all the money in the world in front of someone, if they know that going there is likely to ruin their reputation then they’ll look elsewhere.  So I can’t say I’m overly optimistic about our chances of producing another Burley-esque team at any time soon. 

Some people might point out that this approach to managing a football club goes on at clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona and other massive clubs in Europe.  But I think this is a little different isn’t it?  These clubs are gargantuan, worldwide institutions that will ALWAYS attract the cream of the crop, no matter who is in charge.  The prestige that goes with playing for or representing a club like that is a far cry from Heart Of Midlothian FC, so we need to make the prospect of coming here as attractive as possible in any way that we can.