Foran has no qualms about capitalising on Hearts’ pay woes

Saturday 26 November 2011

RICHIE FORAN hopes the Hearts players who are still waiting for their wages will have their minds on their bank balances rather than on Inverness Caledonian Thistle today.

Hearts' Adrian Mrowiec loses out to John Rankin in the defeat at Tannadice

Custom byline text:

HeraldScotland staff

While sympathetic to the plight of his fellow professionals, the striker admitted he is ready to take advantage of any sign on the pitch this afternoon that it is taking a toll on the Tynecastle squad.

Only just over half of Hearts’ players, many of them youth team members, were paid on time this month. The remainder were told they would receive their money “as soon as practically possible”, but it is now 11 days late.Paulo Sergio, the manager, persuaded the players not to take official action under sim-ilar circumstances in October and it is thought he and club officials have discussed the issue with them again ahead of today’s game.Sergio admitted after last weekend’s defeat to Dundee United that the saga was beginning to affect performances. Since the first payment delay, Hearts have taken one point from a possible 12 and have failed to score.Foran said: “There have been some ups and downs with their wages and hopefully their players will be thinking about that. Hopefully it’s an unsettled dressing room. “I don’t know if it is but I don’t think it can help not being paid on time. Maybe they’re being messed about a little bit and hopefully it will affect their performance and hopefully their supporters can turn on them.”However, the Irishman added: “It’s not the right sit-uation to be in. It’s very unprofessional. I do feel for them. It’s happened to me in the past at a couple of clubs, being messed about with wages.“These players have mortgages to pay, they have bills to pay and it’s not like they’re playing in the English Premier League and have millions in their bank accounts.”Gary Locke, the Hearts head coach, said the home side must heed the warning fired out by Inverness when the bottom-of-the-table club beat Kilmarnock 6-3 three weeks ago, although he is convinced his own team are only a change in luck away from ending their dismal run.Locke said: “It’s a difficult game. Inverness are a good side; they showed that against Kilmarnock. It’s a tight league and I think Inverness are in a false position.“They are always workmanlike and have one or two players who can cause you problems. We’ll need to make sure our players are on their toes.”Although Hearts have struggled to score in recent weeks, their defensive record is the second-best in the league behind Rangers’ impressive, with only 10 goals lost in 15 games.Locke added: “I think we played reasonably well [last] weekend but we made too many basic errors. Hopefully we can cut them out and turn our chances into goals.“We’ve been quite pleased with how we’ve played defensively most of the season. We’d like to create a few more chances and obviously put one or two of them in. If we can do that then hopefully we can get the right result.”

Commenting & Moderation

We moderate all comments on HeraldScotland on either a pre-moderated or post-moderated basis. If you're a relatively new user then your comments will be reviewed before publication and if we know you well then your comments will be subject to moderation only if other users or the moderators believe you've broken the rules, which are available here.

Moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours. Please be patient if your posts are not approved instantly.

Foran has no qualms about capitalising on Hearts’ pay woes

Commenting & Moderation

MOST READ

SPONSORED LINKS

MOST COMMENTED