Sales must go on, warns Paulo Sergio

JUST as Hearts fans were sighing with relief that the predicted exodus of Tynecastle players had not happened during January’s transfer window, along came their manager Paulo Sergio to warn that the club is still in sale mode.

He also reaffirmed that despite retaining almost all the squad, Hearts will still be cutting costs in the months to come, especially with a number of players being out of contract this summer. Nor is his own position entirely sure. Sergio has admitted that he “doesn’t know the project at this moment.” He said: “I am very happy working at this big club. We have had a lot of problems this season but I am proud to work at Hearts. Life isn’t always about good things. Sometimes you have to be in a hard place and do a hard job.

“I think I can stay here next season. That depends on the talk we have with our board. It’s an honest job, working with the young guys and trying to build something, but I’d like to do it with clarified objectives and targets.

“We have to sit round the table and make all these things very clear. For myself, I have to work – I have two kids to raise, and I am not a rich man. We are trying to understand what is our position and what the club can do next season, what is going to be the budget, what we have to reduce in terms of costs.

“It’s a job that we have to start doing next week to put things in place though of course we are looking at our own players first, analysing their performances and their wishes.”

Though the only predictable thing about Hearts is the club’s unpredictability, it seems fairly certain that Sergio will stay around and deal with such problems as possible departures and the lack of a genuine target man up front.

Confirming that John Sutton had indeed gone on a six-month loan to Central Coast Mariners of Australia’s A-League, the manager was upset about his loss of a player who was not a starting regular but was used by Sergio in a specific role. “We don’t have another striker with his characteristics,” said Sergio. “We have other strikers but not a big guy to put up front at some moments of the game, but it was the club’s decision – and John’s decision – to move, with the view being that we save one of the big wages that we have here.

“I am not happy. You need a player with those kind of characteristics in your squad. The way in which I want my sides to play was not of benefit to John’s style. But there are moments in games when you need a player with his kind of characteristics. Now we don’t have it.”

Sergio pointed out that other transfer windows are still open – most notably in Russia – and Hearts are not yet guaranteed to retain all their squad. “We have lost John and something can happen yet as not all the markets are closed,” said Sergio. “I’m worried because I know the reality and the club needs to make some money, so it’s always a difficult situation. It is possible that something will happen.”

Sergio said that those players who do not want to move to Russia, China or the other open markets will have to wait to the summer for a move: “That should help them focus,” he added, “they will be thinking about football between now and the end of the season.”

There’s no question that money, or rather the lack of it, remains a real bind for the manager, who yesterday took his players to Spartans Community Football Academy at Ainslie Park so they could get a full playing workout on the excellent 3G artificial surface, Hearts’ own base at Riccarton being frozen. He admitted that the club should have been selling players in January to bring in funds. Sergio also clarified that there were offers for personnel during the month, but sometimes the club decided not to sell, and sometimes the player didn’t want to move.

“I don’t want to be here talking again about wages,” said Sergio. “Everybody knows that we have to make some money and we didn’t, so our board has to work harder to find the money elsewhere. Whether that means selling players or even the equipment, I don’t know.”

Nor is Sergio happy that the headlines have moved from Hearts’ financial woes to Rangers’ seemingly worse predicament – measured in potential liabilities, that is.

“I am not happy because Rangers have financial problems,” said the Portuguese. “I hope that Hearts can solve our problems and I hope Rangers can solve theirs, too, because Scotland needs healthy clubs. Rangers are one of the biggest clubs in the country and Scottish football needs a strong Rangers. Ally McCoist is a fantastic guy and I know he is able to deal with all these problems.”

Tomorrow’s Scottish Cup tie against St Johnstone will be a “tough game against a good team,” said the manager. “They have already beaten us twice,” he said, “ so we know we will have to work hard to win this game.”

St Johnstone manager Steve Lomas believes Hearts’ ongoing financial issues have helped, rather than hindered, their efforts on the park. “We are expecting a very tough game. Hearts and Paulo and the players have to take enormous credit for how they have dealt with the financial side of it,” he said. “He probably hasn’t lost as many players [in January] as he thought he was going to do. We know it was a tough game there earlier in the year and we know we are going to be in for another one.”