Living within means

JJ has admitted the Hearts hierarchy have "reined in" their ambitions for the Edinburgh club. This week’s ‘ask the club’ event saw director Vitalijus Vasiliauskas announce that owner Vladimir Romanov had "dramatically" revised hid redevelopment plans for the main stand, with the budget dropped from £51million to between £10-15million. This is a major turnaround from talk when he arrived five years ago saying he would build the best stadium in Scotland and that the club should be aiming to win the Champions League. Jefferies met director Sergejus Fedotovas this week to discuss more realistic expectations.

Jefferies said: "Sergejus has been over, he mentioned it at the meeting of the shareholders and I've had a private meeting with him. I do get that sign that things will be a little bit different working closely with him to try to look at ways of improving. Everything's been great. I see them maybe reining in on two or three things and keeping it a little bit more streamlined - nothing wrong with that."

Jefferies played down the scaling back of the stadium plans, insisting it would still improve the atmosphere at Tynecastle. He said: "If you get a new development on the old stand then it's just going to make it even better. It might not be the original plans and all that was set down but, in this economic climate, I think that was common sense. It's not going to stop them doing something - it just means maybe on a lesser scale, but still good enough to get the people in and give them better facilities."