Tynecastle on tenterhooks

So in the end, the 'Tynecastle Three' of Steven Pressley, Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon were indeed selected to face Dunfermline on Saturday - and the worst fears of Hearts fans everywhere thankfully weren't realised. Not that it helped much, with the Jambos' first game under interim manager Eduard Malofeev resulting in a depressing 1-1 draw; but after the utter chaos of what occurred on Friday, perhaps we should be grateful for small mercies.

What is increasingly clear, though, is that the club now faces a truly pivotal moment. Ever since the mercurial, impetuous nature of Vladimir Romanov first became evident, Hearts supporters have been terrified of a scenario whereby, were they to turn against him, the majority shareholder would up sticks, and leave the club completely in the lurch: indeed, it may well explain why his behaviour over the past year has attracted so little opprobrium. But over the weekend, there has been a perceptible change in many fans' attitudes: with even the most optimistic of supporters, who'd believed all those stories of Romanov interfering in team selection to be little more than media mischief-making, and put the side's frequently poor displays this season down to players simply being out of form, rather than as a consequence of a far deeper malaise, totally unable to defend the owner's rant at Riccarton; and accepting that clearly, given a trio of such well-regarded players felt the need to go public about their anxieties, Romanov needs for everybody's sake to listen.

In this context, that the rebel three weren't punished and frozen out of Saturday's team has to be considered a small step forward. But the patience of many fans is now at breaking point: with Romanov, for all the huge good he's done for the club, in danger of being seen as a liability. For if he fails to heed the warning shot fired across his bows by the players, if he continues to meddle with the selection of the side, and if the team continues to be picked not by virtue of meritocracy, but with certain players all but guaranteed to start no matter how badly they might be performing, it is not difficult to imagine how it could all unravel: how key players, sick at having to work in such a chaotic environment, could either leave of their own accord or be sold by their furious owner, how the team's fortunes could crumble, and how the fans could turn in fury on the man once regarded as their saviour.

Yet there is another, rather happier scenario: for Romanov is, if nothing else, a highly accomplished businessman, who remains, as he confirmed on Saturday, deeply committed to the club. The theory behind his long-term plan: namely, to focus on young players progressing into the first team via the youth academies of not just Hearts, but FBK Kaunas and MTZ-Ripo too, makes considerable economic and footballing sense - but he must surely have hugely underestimated the effect a policy of favouring certain players over others would have on team morale. In yesterday morning's newspapers, a number of highly alarming stories emerged of cliques and factions in the squad, with senior players such as Pressley, Hartley and Gordon joined by Roman Bednar, Julien Brellier, Takis Fyssas, Michal Pospisil and Bruno Aguiar in one camp; and figures recruited as personal favourites of Romanov such as Edgaras Jankauskas, Saulius Mikoliunas, Deividas Cesnauskis and Marius Zaliukas in another.

Hardly surprisingly, the Lithuanian contingent, who have often benefited at the expense of the likes of Brellier and Aguiar, have been felt by many in the squad to simply not be pulling their weight; with Gordon's impassioned plea following the defeat by Kilmarnock nine days ago for "everyone to pull in the same direction, take responsibility... and step up to the plate" a clear sign of his frustration that a number of players were continually required to carry the rest of the side. Of most concern of all has been the ease with which journalists have been able to secure damning assessments of how the club is being run from either players or figures extremely close to the top brass: with Moira Gordon's piece in Scotland on Sunday quoting a whole host of different, deeply unhappy (albeit unnamed) sources.

Taken together with Pressley's decision to go to the media with his many concerns, the picture all this paints is of not merely a bitterly divided dressing-room, but a club in a state of near meltdown, with the right hand not having the faintest clue as to what the left one is doing. Indeed, the ultimate example of this occurred at around 5pm on Saturday: for while Malofeev insisted to Radio Scotland that his boss never meddled in team affairs, and there had been no mutiny among the players, Charlie Mann, Romanov's official spokesman, not only confirmed on Five Live that the Tynecastle supremo did interfere, and that he had threatened to sell the entire squad should they fail to defeat Dunfermline, but he also expressly supported the dramatic response of Pressley, Hartley and Gordon.

Mann's words were by far the more significant: for in common with Lord Foulkes, the former chairman, his perspective was one of relief that everything was at last out in the open, and that it provided a long-overdue opportunity to lance the boil, and bring everyone at the club together again. It may also indicate a concerted attempt, on the part of not just the rebel trio, but other key players, club officials such as its Director of Operations, Campbell Ogilvie, and Mann himself, to finally persuade Romanov to take heed of the gravity of the current situation. If not exactly a putsch, it is certainly a challenge to the Hearts owner to listen and understand: for there can be no question that it is his actions which have led to such a perilous state of affairs at a club he genuinely believes he can lead to success.

Romanov is expected to meet Pressley for face-to-face talks later this week: and there he has the opportunity to truly demonstrate the depth of his commitment to the club. For his plan is no longer working: it may have delivered 2nd place and the Scottish Cup last season, but it has led to a rapidly deteriorating side on the park, and mayhem off it, this. Having gone to so much effort to involve and immerse himself in football, and embark on a project intended to help develop the game in his own country, topple the Old Firm with Hearts, and profit personally from the success this will bring, for him to now stubbornly stick to his guns and fail to heed the warnings of his captain would not merely be folly - but utterly inexplicable, and wholly counter-productive to his own twin causes of profit and popularity. And his decision not to punish the players who spoke out against his running of the club may well be a sign that he at last understands this.

None of what I have written should be regarded as a prediction: the author has learnt a chastening lesson over the past week that, where Vladimir Romanov is concerned, even to predict his behaviour from one hour to the next represents the ultimate in fruitless causes. And many other issues - not just his interference in the selection of the team - require resolution: not least the widespread feeling that Malofeev's training methods have resulted in the players being chronically overworked and left devoid of any enjoyment or inspiration in their performances.

But there is a sense that things have, at last, begun to move in the right direction: that the players' revolt on Friday may at length have woken Romanov up to how divisive his methods were proving. If he does, as we all assume, cherish the adulation which has poured forth from Jambos everywhere since his arrival at the club, and if he is truly serious in his ambitions for the future, it would behove him to listen and act upon what Pressley has to say: for if he does the right thing, the light at the end of the tunnel may prove, after all, not to be an oncoming train.