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McGhee Shuns Hearts To Stay At ‘Well?

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Motherwell have confidently announced that Mark McGhee will continue to be their manager next season.

As we all know, McGhee has been strongly linked with a move to Hearts, with many people having it down as the proverbial ‘done deal’, but it would appear that such predictions were unfortunately a little premature…unless…..well, unless we are now looking at another Jim Jefferies-type situation.

I am of course referring to that infamous summer of 1995 when Jefferies, who was then manager of Falkirk, publicly said he was staying with the Bairns, only to come out a week or so later and tell everyone that he’d changed his mind. There was a fair amount of emotional blackmail said to be involved in what happened at Brockville back then and it is clearly a much different situation to the one that Mark McGhee currently finds himself in, but even still you can never say never.

Mind you, this is probably just wishful thinking on our part….and with the likelihood now that McGhee is going nowhere, one would have to be more than a little worried about Hearts’ ability to attract a decent manager this summer. I wonder…McGhee’s comments sounded very positive towards Hearts, with the only stumbling block potentially being the lack of autonomy over the playing staff….has he subsequently sounded out the Romanovs only to be told the answers that all Hearts supporters were dreading?

That would certainly seem likely, and if so I applaud McGhee for turning down the big money move to remain at a club that is managed in the conventional way. He has started something potentially exciting at Motherwell and I wish him and his team every success next year, particularly in European competition.

As for Hearts, well, where now? Back to Lithuania for one of Romanov’s drinking buddies? The mind really does boggle….



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MrH

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5 comments

  • Specs Haver says:

    Well, having been dismissive of all the recent ‘done deal’ talk, I’m not surprised if McGhee has decided against taking the Hearts job. At least we’ve all been spared the embarrassment of him being reprimanded – or fired – by Vlad, with Hearts 4 points clear at the top of the SPL (OK – a touch of wishful thinking there !!). As you say, it now suggests that no-one with integrity will accept the job. Lets hope they haven’t fired Frail yet – somehow I think Hearts may be needing him.

  • MrH says:

    Bring back Alex MacDonald!

  • Specs Haver says:

    Its being reported that Boyle phoned McGhee at Heathrow as he was on his way to meet Romanov, presumably offered him a healthy wage rise, and persuaded him not to throw away his career on an extremely risky project. Its not clear if Romanov WAS actually willing to concede full control to a manager, since things perhaps never reached that stage of discussion. So on to Plan B – try another British guy…. Billy Davies maybe ?
    But if he ends up having to appoint a “drinking buddie” (nice turn of phrase, Mr H ) because no-one else will take it, then the fans will surely revolt in large numbers (despite some of us having renewed), and the team will probably go from bad to worse. We just have to hope that there is a Plan B on Campbell Ogilive’s list.

  • StockportJambo says:

    On the other hand, this could merely be a ‘ploy’ to get Motherwell more compensation. After all, Jeffries signed a deal to stay at Falkirk, then two days later became the Hearts boss. I’m not convinced this is the end of the story.

  • Bud says:

    I don’t see why McGhee would want to go to Hearts. Why would he want to get himself involved with the Romanov nutter, he would be out of a job within weeks probably. If it was a Hearts club without Romanov, then yes, Hearts would be a step up from Motherwell, but while Romanov is there, then he’d be mad to give up the Motherwell job to go to Tynecastle.

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