BobbyBiscuit

Bizarre. Very, very bizarre.

Hearts are poised to offer Avram Grant a return to football after the former Chelsea manager forged an unlikely alliance with the Scottish club's colourful Lithuanian owner, Vladimir Romanov. Grant, who has been out of work since being sacked by Chelsea 14 months ago, has struck a close friendship with Romanov having been introduced to him by Roman Abramovich. The Chelsea owner and Romanov are firm allies on account of business dealings in the former Soviet Union.

 

Hearts are now attempting to piece together what a senior club figuretoday described as an "ideal scenario" where Grant replaces Anatoly Korobochka as director of sport at Tynecastle. Korobochka, who is set to take a job in Russia or Germany, left Hearts in midweek. Moves will now be made within the next fortnight to find Korobochka's successor, with Grant rapidly emerging as Romanov's preferred candidate. "It is premature to say he [Grant] will be employed," added the source. "But he and Mr Romanov will talk about it."

 

One sticking point will be Grant's salary demands, given that Romanov has implemented drastic cost-cutting in an attempt to balance the books at Hearts. It may be that the former Portsmouth director of football accepts an advisory role with Romanov's business, the Ukio Bankas Investment Group, with a wider remit; another source in Lithuania has revealed Grant has ambitions of moving into football club ownership.

 

Two other clubs, FBK Kaunas of Lithuania and the Belarussia team MTZ-Ripo, are also sponsored by Romanov's companies. Intriguingly, Romanov recently moved into the world of basketball ownership by taking over debt-ridden Zalgiris, based in Kaunas.

 

Grant is known to have visited Romanov in Lithuania several times in recent months, and he was present when the Hearts manager, Csaba Laszlo, visited for a meeting with the owner. Grant has attended Lithuanian football matches with Romanov and was also present in Hamburg as Hearts lost a pre-season match to St Pauli this month.

 

Romanov's hiring and firing of managers and backroom staff has proved a constant backdrop to his four years in charge of Hearts. Nine coaches have taken over, with Laszlo last season becoming the first to manage a full campaign in charge, guiding Hearts to third in the Scottish Premier League and the Europa League's final qualifying round. Romanov favours having a sporting director in place in order to supply a conduit between himself and the head coach.

I dreamt last night that we win this game 3-0.  Miller, McDonald and Mackie, in that order, with the goals. 

nice one, keep the info coming lads 

brilliant, cheers Sharpie

Aye, been to Belgrade a couple times. Went to the Marakana for Red Star versus Milan for a Champions League qualifier a couple of years ago, which was an experience.

 

Hopefully you'll enjoy Novi Sad. The Serbs are mad but very friendly folk in general.

What is Belgrade like? Been reading up on all the places we're going and there isn't too much on Belgrade really and what there is seems a bit sketchy

No, headed out to Belgrade on the 8th of August. Taking in the Guca trumpet fest, staying in the Serbian mountains near Pozega. Then headed up to Novi Sad for a few days culminating in a trip to Budapest for the Sziget fest.

Sounds tremendous mate. You been to Belgrade before? We've added Novi Sad into our trip as we weren't sure if we'd make it at first, but it's a definite now.

You're going to Budapest aren't you BB? If so, make sure you buy booklets of 10 metro/bus tickets at the station when you arrive. Makes life a lot easier. Also, check out Szimpla Kert (bar on Kaszinsky Utca I think). That street has a few nice bars on it, not too far from the Opera. And if you visit the open air baths in the park on the  Pest side. Make sure you go through the main entrance and not the side one which myslef and TC did. Nearly got fined for having our stuff there past 7pm!

The Kulak restaurant was good for Hungarian food.  

Yeah manc, we're flying there so that's the first port of call.  did you like it?

what's Szimpla Kert like?

Where was the Kulak?

When are you away on your travels BB?

Four weeks today Sharpie. Can't wait. Have you been back out that way recently?

£22 for the South

8-1 Well

 

 

Complete nonsense, he is a decent player but far better have left.

Hart and Anderson for example

TO BOOK OR NOT TO BOOK 

book it. fram arent going to score 3 are they?

There's a team playing tonight called:

Cherno More

I mean, i'm not fan of hers but to name a football club that is taking it a bit far....

I'm 50/50, I'd love to fire back out there but I still have reservations about the place being filled with drunken madmen.

 

I'll still be going though. 

Pretty much the reason i opted out of Madrid a couple of years ago.

I've been scouring the net but can't see it anywhere.

 

Are you going if Sigma get through?

No mate, i'm going on a 3 week rail trip round central/eastern europe in 4 weeks time, all my cash is going towards that.  Do you still want Fram through instead?

The Motherwell game is on myp2p2 tonight.  couldn't see the Sigma-Fram game listed though, anyone seen that listed elsewhere?

The Killie boy running through after two minutes and Bossu staying on his line is something I have never seen in football since I was in primary 5  and we stuck the kid who didn't like football in goals.

I'm glad someone else picked up on this. Through one of his articles, may even be in this thread, McGhee mentioned that the team had taken his tactics too literally. That to me read that he found out our team is stupid too.

It's one of the big differences between players at this level and those at say the Premiership... the ones at SPL level, in the main, don't have a clue how to play the game.  Look at the difference players like Gary Mcdonald or Barry Nicholson made to our side, simply because they had a bit of a clue about when and where to run.

Zander Diamond was as bad as anyone on the pitch that night BB, as bad as Plastic Bertrand was, he had an equal. Surprised how quiet the broom cupboard is, we need at least a couple of "good" and preferably experienced players!

Don't think he was as bad as bossu, he was bad, but not that bad. It really looked as though the guy had never played in a game of football in his life.

I take it we can re-register players if we get to the group stages?

yeah, the Friday deadline is only for this qualifier.

I didnae see Bossu's Killie performance. But surely there's been worse from the likes of Tzvetanov or Kombouare. Tony Warner really springs to mind with this discussion. Didn't Warner let in something like 17 goals in his five Dons appearances?

Not sure about that. Either way, he was fucking hideous and to blame for 3 out of 4 goals directly. Worst. Debut. Ever.

Anyway, I hope he's not reading this! 

Jackie Mack at hampden against QoS....easy...in fact, that was so bad, I don't think I'll ever get over it.  The boy was an absolute joke, so bad I'll be reciting the story to my great grandson as he passes me a werthers original.  Pish.

He was dreadful that day, but Soutar, Considine, Diamond and Maybury were equally as culpable. That night at Killie there were folk screaming for the guy to be subbed after 10 minutes, that's how bad he was.

You sure about that? I've seen some pretty woeful performances by some pretty woeful players during the Aitken, Miller, Skovdahl and Paterson eras.

Absolutely.  I've seen the same players in those eras as you Reekie and I swear Bossu is one of the worst. In fact, I'm struggling to think of any who had such a monumentally negative impact as he had that night.

The guy is worse than shite. His performance v Killie is easily one of the worst individual performances I've ever seen from any Dons player.

Is he not an Aberdonian as well? 

 

 

 

(Or am I thinking of someone else)

You're right.

He's not.

I wondered about Bossu when I saw that he hadn't been given the No. 12 shirt.

Are the fans not no12?