Rix sacked as Hearts head coach

Apart from the fact that a footie club is named Heart of Midlothian (that's the Scottish for you), the most interesting thing is seeing how the different styles of rich Russian takeover affects your club. On the one hand, you have Chelsea, stable management, financial backing, and the chairman staying out of the management side of the business. On the other, Hearts, with a guy who obviously believes he is the manager, so continually clashes with anyone he appoints into that position. He's picking the team, buying all the players without consultation (but still blaming the manager when they turn out to be a bit crap), and then when they still aren't doing quite as well as he hoped, he sacks the manager, coz he obviously won't sack himself.

Now this whole thing puts the fans in a difficult position - their team is in the best position it's been in for years, they have better players, they didn't go bankrupt (which is always a possibility for the Edinburgh clubs, which I got a little insight after I had a drunken chat with a banker from up there), but the owner is obviously either a complete control freak, or a bit of a nutter. You know that before long, there won't be any decent managers who will go up there (for any money) coz they'll only be around for a couple of months at best, and the team they put out will be chosen by someone else. Actually, maybe this is Steve Bruce's next job after the shambles of a team he put out last night?

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