No new players; no new manager; no game today for Hearts

By: Graham | February 2nd, 2008

By doing little more than turning up at Fir Park for the Cup replay with Motherwell, Hearts have cunningly ensured themselves a rest during a period of awful weather. You’ve got to hand it to Stevie Frail for thinking outside the box.

It also gives Frail the chance to take a leisurely look at his new signings on the training pitch before deciding which to put into the team for the next game – home against Gretna next Saturday. That shouldn’t take long, of course. Yes, while other teams saw a flurry of last minute activity, Hearts brought in big-name signing Fernando Screpis. Where from? Kaunas, of course. But wait, he was there on loan. From Hearts, for whom he signed pre-season. So, in fact, Hearts signed no new players at all for the first team in January.

There have been rumours that Screpis is only finally in Edinburgh after threatening some sort of legal action to force Hearts to fulfil the terms of the contract he originally signed in October last year. Not the most auspicious of starts to his Tynecastle career. We need a midfielder, certainly, so why the delay in bringing him in?

There was another midfielder available recently in the SPL. Barry Robson has moved to Celtic from Dundee United, once again underlining the resources at the disposal of the Old Firm. Dundee United are third in the SPL, Celtic second, but Celtic have the cash to extract any players of serious talent from the ‘lesser’ teams around them. But what is the point of having a multi-millionaire owner if Hearts cannot compete for the signatures of a player like Robson? Of course, Robson would not see a shift down the coast to Tynecastle as a sensible career move. And who could blame him? But the Romanovs promised to make Hearts a top club. Where are the signs of that ambition, other than in the plans for commercial redevelopment of the land?

And the new manager that Vlad the Impatient is reported to have said was his main priority? Exactly.

That’s the trouble with Saturdays when Hearts don’t have a game. It lets the mind wander.