A Hearts Team Of 11 Scots?

Vladimir Romanov has once again indicated that he’s likely to be at Tynecastle for a number of years yet.

Romanov has been criticised by many for all manner of things recently, one of which being his fondness for bringing in players from Lithuania to play in the Hearts first team. However he has once again spoken of this policy as being a short-term measure until the Hearts
Youth Academy is ready to bear fruit, with his apparent goal being to have a Hearts team of the future consistenting entirely of home-grown
players.

Speaking to some of the kids at the Youth Academy, Romanov was quoted as saying:

‘I hope that, in five or six years, you’ll be part of my plans.

‘I am waiting for you to grow up so Hearts get the best Scottish talent.

‘We’re expecting to get new players from the academy.

‘The ones born in 1988 are coming through now.

‘We will have our own players to strengthen the squad for the future.’

Whether or not you believe that this is Romanov’s genuine plan for Hearts is doubtful, but in fairness he has said this on several occasions publicly now. However the problems we have just now are not necessarily where the players come from, it’s how they are managed when they get here!

Despite our squad having been weakened (in my opinion) over the past year or so, Hearts still have a relatively talented squad in comparison to the rest of the SPL and with a proper management structure and plan in place, there’s no reason why it couldn’t achieve things.