Hearts Are Ready To Sacrifice Their Best Player To Naismith’s “Anyone But Celtic” Crusade

Last night, in the immediate aftermath of their win over Hibs, where Lawrence Shankland scored the winner, and kept up a decent record of getting big goals in big games, the Hearts manager Steven Naismith was not in the mood to give the fans much to cheer about.

In fact, Naismith’s intention was to prepare them for Hard Times, the very hardest. Because he started to pave the way for Hearts selling the player in the next four weeks, and he even threw in the story of The Village Idiot and how he moved from Kilmarnock to Ibrox and how it was Naismith himself stepped up to fill the hole, as if the inference wasn’t already obvious.

They are preparing to sell Lawrence Shankland if the club across the city from us comes calling. The Hearts manager cares more about slashing our tyres than he does about the wellbeing of his own club. Shankland is not only their top scorer, he’s virtually their only scorer.

The stat the commentary team laid on Hearts fans last night is terrifying; after Shankland, their top scorer this season is Own Goals; that’s no joke. Shankland has 16. Their next highest scorer has 2.

How often must we warn Hearts fans that this guy does not have their best interests foremost in his mind? How often must we tell that club that it has dreadful leadership which doesn’t give a fig for it?

When will it be clear? When Shankland is at Ibrox in a cut price deal that leaves them scrambling for some cheap replacement? Will that settle the issue?

There’s talk of them going for Van Der Veen; Ibrox has also been linked with him.

But Shankland is younger, and has done it consistently. And yes, we all know the pressure, the intense pressure, the West of Scotland media will bring to bear on that club and the player to force Hearts to complete the deal, but let’s be honest they hold all the cards.

Except the one that matters, which is Naismith being willing to make the sale so that he can stay in good with the club he really cares about.

There’s no point in pretending otherwise, his comments are about as clear as they can be. Hearts should “enjoy him while he’s here” and if he goes don’t worry because there are players who can take his place already at the club … except there aren’t and Hearts fans aren’t stupid and they know there aren’t.

The talk on their forums is that they want the club to hold out for millions, many millions, more than the Ibrox club will be willing to pay. But the way Naismith was talking, he’d be prepared to accept much, much less and is already gearing up to trot out the “no-one wants an unhappy player at their club” rationale … it’s guff. He can’t wait to see him in blue.

And before I get an inbox full of bile from Ibrox fans about Miovski, I said in a previous blog that Aberdeen is fully entitled to ask for decent money for the guy; I wasn’t advocating that we low-ball them and grab the guy on the cheap or that we unsettle them to do it.

Ibrox is not beneath trying every stratagem in the dark arts.

And with the player’s own manager willing to send his entire season down the tubes they might not even need to delve that deeply into them.