Heart of Midlothian today sensationally announced that manager Jim Jefferies and assistant Billy Brown had been sacked from the club, with current first team coach Gary Locke being put in temporary charge. The details concerning the sackings are still being kept very quiet, however, many are suggesting it is a combination of the Craig Thompson saga and the feeling that Vladimir Romanov wants to place a manager in charge who has European experience for their crunch game on Thursday against Paksi.
Jefferies and Brown are no strangers to altercations with chairmen, having been involved in a high profile feud with Killie chairman, Michael Johnston, which led to both men quitting, leaving the club at a time when they were struggling to stay in the SPL. At Killie it was a sense of relief for the fans after the incident, with many claiming that Jefferies had took them as far as he could, however, with Hearts, Jefferies had just led the team to a third place finish, and a great chance of qualifying for the next round of the Europa league.
Hearts fans are split over the decision, with some seeing it as being an understandable decision, but the timing of such a call, must bring up some questions. A run of eleven games without a win, is a worrying statistic, however, a new season deserves a new start with a draw at Ibrox and an away draw in Europe not being the worst of starts.
Yesterday’s match against Dundee United at Tynecastle was more of a bad result, with Hearts struggling to match their opponents. Lucky not be already one down after a John Rankin free kick smashed against the crossbar, Hearts could have took the lead through either Stephen Elliot or John Sutton, but both missed glorious chances. Jon Daly took two chances to get the only goal of the game, his first chance being superbly stopped by Kello in the Hearts goal, before the resulting corner was met by the head of the big man and he powered the ball past Kello. Elliot and Templeton both had chances to equalise for the Jambos, but in the end United ran out comfortable winners and could have added more to their tally.
This result, with Romanov being in attendance may have been the final nail in Jefferies coffin, however even this result was not that catastrophic. A good Dundee United side will take points off many teams this year and Hearts may still have been feeling some fatigue from their European trip in midweek.
If you were to sack Jefferies then the time to have done it would have been during the pre-season, giving a new manager time to bring in his own signings and work with his new squad to prepare them for a new season. Romanov’s decision has left the new manager with very little time to work in both the transfer market and in the run up to difficult fixtures, a difficult European match being the first one to navigate. Furthermore, it is very likely that Gary Locke will be put in charge for this match, leaving Hearts with a caretaker manager who has no experience of any management at the top level, for a match that could be worth quite a lot of money for Hearts.
The Craig Thompson debacle could be more of the reason for Jefferies being let go, with it being reported that Jefferies quite rightly refused to play or keep Thompson training with the team. Romanov though, firmly views Thompson as being a player that could be worth a considerable sum of money for Hearts at some point, and failed to take Thompson off the wage bill. The question though is, who does Romanov believe will purchase Thompson any time in the future? A known sex offender has no place in modern football in any league across the world, and moving him to Lithuania is just an attempt to sweep everything under the carpet and try to make people forget what he did.
Football fans are not that stupid though, and they will make sure that he is not welcome at any club in Scotland and probably even further abroad.
Jim Jefferies and Billy Brown though seem to have been caught in a situation where they have been told “if you don’t like it, then you can get out”! TheFullTenYards understands that Portuguese manager Paulo Sergio will take over from Jefferies, and his record of six jobs in eight years is not one that is going to set the world alight. A yes man for Romanov to control, we shall wait and see?
The only thing we do know for sure though is that Mad Vlad is still as mad as ever, while Jefferies and Brown are added to the ever constantly updated list of sacked managers at Hearts.
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