Hearts owner Romanov 'happy' with progress after Jim Jefferies' return

HEARTS' hard-to-please owner Vladimir Romanov is "very happy" with Jim Jefferies' work so far since returning to the Tynecastle club last month following the departure of Csaba Laszlo.

While Jefferies himself has had little direct contact with Romanov in the past few weeks, Alex Metlitski, the club's sport director having succeeded Anatoly Korobochka in that position, is in regular touch with Lithuania.

And, after watching Hearts bounce back from three defeats in the new manager's first three games to then win three games in a row, Romanov appears to be pleased with his decision to bring Jefferies back to the club.

"I talk every day to Alex, who's a former player himself, and he reports back to Lithuania," said Jefferies. "After our win up at Pittodrie on Saturday, Alex was telling me that the owner was very happy, which was good to hear.

"He knew we had lost twice to Aberdeen recently, including a defeat in the Scottish Cup, but on this occasion we showed a positive determination after not only having a man sent off but also losing our two central defenders through injury."

One player who typified that determination at Pittodrie was David Obua, who started the game up front but ended it at left-back as Jefferies shuffled his pack to cope with the dismissal of Larry Kingston as well as those injuries to Dawid Kucharski and Marius Zaliukas.

After playing at St Johnstone in Jefferies' first game in charge, Obua was left out of the side that then lost to St Mirren in the semi-finals of the Co-operative Insurance Cup at Fir Park.

However, the 25-year-old Ugandan international has been used as a centre-forward by Jefferies since Christian Nade put himself out of the picture following his dressing-room bust-up with Ian Black at Parkhead and Obua's attitude has delighted the manager.

"After David got his goal against Hamilton, he became a different player thanks to the confidence he got from that," said Jefferies.

"Last Saturday, he ended up at left back and did extremely well there, though someone has since told me he once played a full season there.

"I'm looking for players to give me effort every time they pull on a Hearts jersey and David certainly played his part in what was a marvellous team effort after finding ourselves under the cosh up at Pittodrie."

Meanwhile, Bobby Campbell, a left-back who represented Hearts during the mid-50s, has died.

• HEARTS are reported to have taken on Lithuanian youngsters Marius Forest and Thomas Snapkauskas from FBK Kaunas with a view to developing them at their academy at Riccarton.