Valdas Not Coming Back?

Valdas Ivanauskas is unlikely to return to Hearts as Head Coach. That is the opinion of John McGlynn, one of Valdas’ assistant coaches and also a target for Raith Rovers after Craig Levein left them for Dundee United as manager this week.

According to local news reports, McGlynn feels that ‘interim’ manager Eduard Malofeev’s changes are so fundamentally different to Valdas’ that he finds it hard to believe that the man who led Hearts to cup glory last season will return to the same position. Malofeev’s actions appear to be those of a man who’ll be in charge for much longer than the fortnight off that Valdas is supposedly taking.

I was going to say that this news is worrying, but what news coming out of Hearts recently HASN’T been that way?! I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s more than a tad concerned that we now have, McGynn apart, an entirely Russian-speaking coaching team which most of the Hearts players are struggling to comprehend. And if McGlynn does happen to get the Raith Rovers job, then we have pretty much no-one left on the training ground who can communicate effectively to the non-Russian speaking players, who believe it or not are still in the majority. I think it’s a farce.

The sooner that Romanov realises that the current set-up isn’t going to work the better. He needs to get a respected manager/coach in who can communicate to his playing staff effectively, as well as being given a free reign to do his job as he sees fit. I’d be happy for that man to be Valdas at least until the day when he’s proven that he’s not good enough, but then I doubt if he’s ever had the free reign at any point of his short stint as Head Coach.

Worrying times….