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Though they've likely thrown the Premier League Championship away, Roman Romanov, son to Hearts Football Club's millionaire owner Vladmir Romanov, says they do not regret losing the services of manager George Burley and chief executive Phil Anderton.

He says that they have not yet paid out compensation to the two. He told The Sunday Times that, "We are still negotiating the amount of any compensation and why we should be paying someone compensation. If the contract cannot be fulfilled, then why should we pay any compensation?". The public statement is that Mr. Burley left by mutual consent. Romanov squashed recent rumours that they tried to get Burley back. He says, "We know what we talked about."

Vladimir Romanov had set a goal of winning the Premiership League within three years. With Burley leading the show, they won ten league games in a row and they were solidly in first place. Now expectations are high but fans are wondering if Graham Rix, the new sporting director, can manage to keep the ball rolling. Already the legs on the machine are starting to shake. Roman Romanov says Rix will be evaluated at the end of his contract this summer and then decisions will be made about him staying or going.

Now that Heart's owners smelled success in the air, they are greedy to get that cup. The three-year target is out. Roman Romanov says that anything less than second place this season should be seen as a failure. "Of course we still feel we are capable of finishing second, but it is a competitive league," he told the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. "You always want to be on top and at the end of the season we will see where we are and assess what could be done differently. Every day you think, is there anything I could have done differently? You analyse your decisions and some of them are wrong and some of them are right, the same with every human." And for the decision regarding George Burley? "We think about it very often and I don't think it could have been done any differently, from George Burley's side or our side. It was the best decision for both parties. We got into a situation where both parties felt it was difficult to move forward. Yes, we were top of the league but we don't know where we would have been now if George Burley didn't leave. It's a guess. But we don't have regrets. Nothing could have been done differently."

Romanov insists that Burley was not the main factor in their early season success. The whole team pulled together to make it happen.