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The forward of Edinburgh and Lithuanian national team rejected claims of a conspiracy against Lithuanian players in the Scottish club, alleging that some of them planned a plot to force team captain Steven Pressley to leave the club. Rumors circulated that Scottish national team defender S. Pressley exposed the plan of club owner Vladimir Romanov, whose goal was to convince Lithuanian players to hold a secret vote to remove the team captain. S. Pressley openly criticized the strange changes made by the main shareholder of Hearts in the club, and after these statements, the Scotsman did not take to the field in the match against Falkirk, and although he later returned for one match, he was not even among the substitutes in the match against St Mirren on Saturday. This likely meant that the veteran would eventually leave the team. However, E. Jankauskas, who is the oldest of the seven Lithuanian players trained by Valdas Ivanauskas of Hearts, insists that there were no attempts to interfere with S. Pressley's position. "I can assure you that none of the Lithuanians were involved in any conspiracies or similar discussions. They are still quite young players and I don't believe they even understand what is going on. We all do the same job, regardless of whether we are white or black, whether we were born in Senegal, France or Lithuania," said E. Jankauskas. "There are no conspiracies and no Lithuanian is against the Scotsman. Our relationship with Steven is good. Of course, disagreements can arise when you spend the whole day on the training field, but I consider him my friend," said the experienced forward. Meanwhile, Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon rushed to explain why he refused to take the captain's armband in the match against St Mirren - according to the Scottish national team goalkeeper, at that time, with captain armband being worn by Paul Hartley being shown the red card he had the opportunity only out of respect for the defender Robbie Neilson, who had been playing for the team for a decade. "In no way would I refuse the captain's duties. In recent seasons, if the captain or vice-captain did not play, the armband was received by Robbie. I felt that this way I could honor him and so I told Paul to give the armband to him. He played more games than me and I just felt that he deserved respect in that situation," explained C. Gordon. "However, this does not mean that I do not want to be the captain of Hearts - it would be a great honor. If I had known that it would cause a reaction, I would have taken the armband, but I felt that I needed to show respect to Robbie - nothing more," said the goalkeeper, whose future at the club was in doubt after he and P. Hartley publicly expressed the players' dissatisfaction.
