HEARTS have blasted as "complete rubbish" the suggestion that manager Csaba Laszlo is threatening to quit after falling out with Vladimir Romanov.
A newspaper report yesterday the claimed the majority shareholder snubbed Laszlo's pleas for a summer transfer budget of around £2 million. But a spokesman for the club said described the story as "complete rubbish".
He added: "I spoke to the man
ager this morning just to check and I got it from his own mouth that it's nonsense. He just laughed it off."
Laszlo has so far enjoyed a trouble-free relationship with Romanov, who has fallen out with previous managers since taking control of Hearts.
The club are still around £30m in debt and will lose defenders Robbie Neilson and Christos Karipidis this summer, having already sold captain Christophe Berra in January. Other key men – Bruno Aguiar, Andrew Driver, Laryea Kingston and Lee Wallace – could yet follow.
Laszlo spoke of the need for Hearts to spend in order to build on this season's success. "I wish the board to help us a little bit," he said. "I know and everybody knows we are in a very special situation at the moment – only sale, sale, sale. For me, personally, now must come the signal from the club to buy – investment is very important."
Laszlo, who took charge at Tynecastle last summer on a three-year contract, told his club's official website yesterday: "I have a contract at Hearts and that situation hasn't changed and I am building for the future here. I am concentrating on the game against Celtic. This is the last game of the season and it won't be long before next season.
"Robbie and Kari have now left the club and good luck to them in their careers. But we still have good players here and we are working hard together to bring new players in who will add quality to our squad. That is our aim."
Another player he will be keen to retain his own signing, David Obua. After a tricky start at Hearts, the Ugandan has become something of a fans' favourite, not least because of his sunny personality. On the field, he has adapted to the Scottish game in recent months, a development he credits to thousands of assistants – the Hearts fans.
"It is not the type of football that I play," said Obua. "I am a footballer, I don't fight, I don't jump around, but I have had to adapt to the game. Being a target man is unnatural to me. It was the weakest part of my game, so I had to learn to battle.
"The fans wanted that, so I had to change and give them what they want.
"It was a slow process. The fans taught me that I had to battle for everything. Every ball, you have to fight for it. I picked up on that and thought 'OK, you don't want me to play my fancy football,' but that is the mentality here, everyone wants to fight, to get stuck in – everyone's a Braveheart."
Obua spent hours in the gym with sports scientist Andy Murray, whose wedding he will attend next month – "don't know if I will wear a kilt, though." He also credits team-mate Laryea Kingston for helping him to settle in, especially after Obua encountered the Scottish weather. "The first couple of days I thought, 'what is this?' I wore everything I had, even my pyjamas."
The learning curve has been steep for Obua, but he has prospered and the talk of a move to England which surrounded him in January does not seem so fanciful now. "I need to learn more about this game first," he said. "I was more interested in the Spanish league when I was younger but the English league is now the biggest in the world."
