Hearts striker Andrius Velicka is reportedly attracting interest from five clubs, with Bolton Wanderers apparently being the keenest to sign the Lithuanian.
Despite suffering from the ridiculous team selection policy that Hearts have adopted until the last week, which has meant that he’s never had a regular strike partner and has rarely played more than two games on the bounce, Velicka is once again our top scorer this season. He showed his worth again on Saturday against Kilmarnock, scoring a real strikers’ goal to get us back on level terms and showing a real hunger to try and drive us onto victory.
I think it would be a shame if Hearts were to lose Velicka now as we could be about to witness the very best that this guy has to offer. Remember, all of the strikers at Hearts have suffered due to the selection process of the Romanov regime, and I genuinely feel that good players have been made to look bad or merely ordinary because of this. Even the likes of Calum Elliot and Michal Pospisil, two players whom most of the fans would be quite happy to move on, are better players that they’ve been made to look. The fact that Velicka has scored so many goals but the jury is still out on him really does show you what it’s been like at Tynecastle. Who knows – if he’d been in the team every week alongside a regular partner he might well have scored double the number that he has.
I suppose it all depends how much someone like Bolton really wants Velicka. I’m sure he gets looked after financially at Hearts, but if a Premiership club really want you then generally the money they can offer is likely to be much greater than the likes of Hearts would be able to pay, and the profile is also much higher down there. It would be difficult to see Velicka turning down such a move, unless of course he doesn’t have the confidence in his own ability to perform at that level on a regular basis……….like Alan Hutton!
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If we get the £2million that’s being talked about I think we should take it. Decent finisher but for me we could sign better with that sort of money.
I think people seem to be forgetting two important things. 1) Any money Hearts get for transfer of players is clearly NOT being used to buy replacements (Craig Gordon… £9M… Paul Hartley… £1.1M…) and 2) Velicka is a Kaunas player. All monies go to them. We would just lose our top scorer when we’re 2nd bottom of the SPL. Still think “we” should take the £2million?
Perhaps it’s “we” as in Romanov’s collection of clubs. No-one really knows what the policy on re-investing the money is, but £2million for Velicka is perhaps not bad money regardless of who is getting it. I’d prefer if we could keep him until we really see what he can do, but we may not get that chance.
Take your point SJ but yes I’d still take that money for him. I don’t see it as a particularly big loss – just my view on the player.