Each season Vladimir Romanov ships in a host of Lithuanian players to join the Hearts first team. Some have done well, while others have been shocking. We have had a total of 13 Lithuanians in the 3 years that Vladimir has watched over us. Velicka, Mikoliunas, Cesnauskis and Zaliukas have been successful but are the minority. Whereas Kurskis, Pillabitis and Beniusis have been about as much use a chocolate tea cosies.

The very first was the controversial figure Saulius MIkoliunas who when he’s is good he is very good. However when he is bad he is really bad. He has been in the headlines over the past few years for all the wrong reasons. The first incident which got Saulius a bad name was in his first season with the Jambos. Allow me to set the scene; Rangers had travelled to Tynecastle for an evening kick off. They were one nil up until the 87th minute when Mark Burchill scored an equaliser. Then the madness began. Andy Davis, the linesman that night, mysteriously flagged for a foul in the box. The referee gave a penalty for Sotirios Kyrgiakos jumping and missing the ball. This led to Miko running up to the linesman and barging into him. He was subsequently sent off and had to be dragged away from the incident by his team mates. He received an eight match ban that was reduced to two matches. I mean if you look at the situation the linesman robbed Hearts of a point that evening and when this happens over and over again it’s not a surprise that Miko reacted in this way. See below for the entire incident and analysis.

He was also involved in another controversial incident against Scotland were he won a penalty. This saw the best and worst of the Lithuanian as he showed great skill and pace to get past the Scottish defence but then took a dive that fooled everyone.

With a player like Miko you have to accept that he will have some bad games however if he can produce moments like this on a slightly more regular basis he has the opportunity to become a firm fans favourite again.

Cesnauskis was the next to arrive. He couldn’t have got off to a better start scoring on his debut against Kilmarnock. He looked great and complemented Miko well as they had the ability to swap wings. He has had a few injuries over the years but we have seen glimpses of what he can offer over the past three years. He will get another season in Gorgie but must add more goals to his game. Chesney is known at the moment not as a great goal scorer but a scorer of great goals as shown below against Celtic.
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Marius Kizys arrived with these two but didn’t have as much impact and did not have his contract renewed. However the next Lithuanian that Vlad managed to sign was Champions League and Uefa Cup winner Edgaras Jankauskas. A real coup for him and a statement that we really did mean business. He scored a number of crucial goals in the 2005/06 campaign including crucial goals against Partick Thistle and Hibs in the run to the Scottish Cup final. He stayed for two seasons and can put his cup medal with all the other honours he has achieved throughout his illustrious career.

Next was defender/midfielder Nejerus Barasa who did a creditable job but again was struck down by injuries and couldn’t play as much as he would have liked. He was appreciated by the Hearts fans for his competitive nature and never say die attitude. 

By now it was the 2006/07 season and Romanov added three more Lithuanians to boost our squad prior to our participation in the Uefa Champions League. Andrius Velicka, Marius Zaliukas and Kestutis Ivaskevicius joined on loan from Vlad’s other team FBK Kaunas. Velicka became a cult hero and finished top goal scorer for the Jam Tarts in both seasons that he was with us. He was the only Lithuanian player that the fans did not boo when Hearts took on Rangers in November 2006. This was claimed by Alex Koslovski to be a racist gesture by the Tynecastle crowd. Velicka will probably be remembered best for his contribution in the CIS Cup quarter final against Celtic were he scored two great goals.

Zaliukas has formed a formidable partnership with Christoph Berra at the back and he is still only 24 so he can only get better. He is one of the more consistent Lithuanians who has signed for the club unlike Ivaskevicius. He will either score a goal or you won’t even know that he’s playing. He looks like he’s got bags of potential but whether he will achieve this with Hearts is doubtful. He has got goals at Celtic Park and at home to Rangers to his credit but does not perform well on a regular enough basis.

January came and yet more Lithuanians were brought in. We now had 10 Lithuanians in our squad. This would have been great if they had all been good players but we were just bringing in dross. Players like Linas Pillabitis and Eduard Kurskis should never have got near the Hearts first team. Tomas Kancelskis was the other who arrived in January 2007 and looked solid at the back but nowhere near the quality of Berra or Zaliukas. It just looked as if Romanov was bringing them over to put them in the shop window but they ended up showing themselves up for being truly awful players. Pillibitas probably won’t be remembered in a couple of years which is a blessing for him. However Eduard Kurskis will be remembered for two games he played. One against Rangers were he threw the ball into his own net and the week after he was sent off against Inverness Caledonian Thistle. A catastrophic couple of games that even the strongest character would struggle to come back from. Unsurprisingly he was sent back to Kaunas shortly after these incidences. Thank god for that.

And the current season saw one of the undisputed worst strikers to ever grace our great game; Ricardus Beniusis. He had a shocking debut against HIbs which basically killed his Hearts career. I myself feel that it was very harsh to judge a player on half a game but that is what happened. His poor debut led the fans to nicknaming him “Beniuseless” so let’s face it he never really had a chance. He left after 6 months making just 8 appeaances. The final Lithuanian to join but I’m sure not the last was Audrius Ksanivicious; a nippy winger who has fought his way back into the national team since coming to Edinburgh. He has been fairly successful and has been rewarded with a new contract for next season. Let’s hope he continues this form next year and can be labelled as one of Vlad’s better signings.

The question is how many more will we get in next season and will they be Velicka’s or Kurskis’s? Please oh please don’t make them Kurskis’s!