DC92
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Posts posted by DC92
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On 17/09/2024 at 12:17, VincentGuerin said:
Does getting onvolved with Hearts after the success he's already enjoyed really significantly enhance his reputation?
I don't really buy that part, to be honest. Seems like trying to cram in a justification.
Listening to Scarves Around the Funnel, Mark Donaldson hinted that Bloom/his company would take a cut of transfer fees received.
Going back to your point about work permits, I was interested to see this mentioned in the Hearts Standard in the context of being a growth opportunity for Scottish clubs. If you trust your model to find players and make a profit on them, it makes sense to find a club nearby where you can fish in a bigger pool.
To be honest, especially because of the USG case study, I think there is decent cause to believe this is not about Brighton.
Where I am sceptical is the idea that magic formulas exist in football. There have always been fad "blueprints" that people want to emulate. In a Scottish context, Hibs' youth "conveyor belt" in the 2000s comes to mind as well as Aberdeen's recent record of player sales, but these things never seem to last. Good judgement on the part of those clubs plays a part, but people tend to underplay the influence of luck, randomness and a whole load of other intangible factors.
It would be right to point out this Starlizard thing has a more expansive track record than those examples, but the point stands that just because it's been a success at Brighton and USG up until 2024 doesn't guarantee it will be a success Hearts in 2025.
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1 hour ago, Leith Green said:
Is it true that Hearts haven't won a game in almost 5 months?
Someone told me this, but surely that can't be right.
In the last 16 competitive matches between club and country I've seen 0 wins, 4 draws and 12 defeats. It doesn't get much better if you include friendlies.
Cleverly building up a hefty karmic credit ahead of a deep European run and a cup win imo.
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1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:
90% might be what saves the day here.
Whether it would benefit us or not is genuinely neither here nor there to me.
I just don't want it. I'd rather be shite by ourselves than become a chain franchise club.
And that is a completely reasonable position to take.
My principles are far weaker. I completely oppose becoming a feeder club, but the USG model does not constitute that as far as I can tell. If this is a similar arrangement, limited to sharing scouting data, then I'm open-minded, but we need to find out more.
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2 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:
Any Scottish club linking up with an English club need to be mindful of FFP and Work Permit regulations. It's not comparable to a link up with a club abroad, as it has obvious uses and abuses that you don't get with an EU-not-UK club.
The reasons to be sceptical are so numerous, and a lot of them line up with the questions Hibs fans refused to ask when it was their turn.
I honestly think most of our fans will be up for it though. It'll be the usual "get to the next level" stuff, and it'll end in tears and recrimination.
That is a fair point, but it still appears that his USG involvement doesn't disadvantage them or directly benefit Brighton in any meaningful way. That suggests his motivation for getting involved with other clubs, whatever it is, is not necessarily connected to furthering Brighton's interests.
What that motivation is needs to be ascertained. Is it another feather in the cap of his data consultancy? Does he just fancy another project? I don't know but there are possibilities outside of boosting Brighton and the USG experience lends some credence to those possibilities imo.
There will be plenty of Hearts fans willing to jump into this without a second thought, but 90% is a very high bar.
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1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:
Not for me at all. There's only one direction this kind of pish goes in.
1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:Be a sad day if the two Edinburgh clubs end up feeder clubs for Bournemouth and Brighton tbh.
The reporting suggests it is independent of Brighton and is instead a recruitment link-up with Bloom's data company. It is 100% correct to be sceptical of that, but it's worth looking at Union Saint-Gilloise where Bloom has been involved since 2018.
On the face of it that has been an unqualified success on the pitch. They've gone from lower leagues, to title challengers to title winners and Champions League participants in that time by initially spending modest 6 figure fees on players and selling them on for big profits.
As far as I can tell they haven't loaned a player from Brighton for two years and they've only ever sold one player to them (Undav for €7m). They aren't having to give Brighton reserves a game to their own detriment, and they aren't being used to purchase punts to develop into future Brighton players either.
It is absolutely correct to be asking why, and any Hearts fan should be sceptical of anyone selling magic beans, but the USG case study suggests this is at least worthy of consideration.
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It seems the Tony Bloom stuff is true then. Looks like an arrangement similar to USG's but I'll reserve judgement until we get more details.
Maybe partly explains Savage's departure and replacement with a less recruitment-focused SD.
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9 hours ago, Jinky67 said:
Wasn’t about the proximity, it’s where it hit. If it hits your arms above the t-shirt line it isn’t a penalty which is what it appears to be in this case. From 1 angle it almost looks like his shoulder which shows how high up the arm it hit
It hits him higher up than I thought initially yesterday, but still below the t-shirt line IMO.
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1 hour ago, kingjoey said:
The Rangers one, the ball is going to hit Barron on another part of his body if it doesn't hit his arm. The Celtic one, the ball is flying into the box if the Hearts player doesn't stop it with his arm. Good improvements to the handball laws this season.
I saw Collum saying the same thing. As I said at the time, I'm fine with that one not being a penalty (if applied consistently) but it was not going to hit another part of his body.
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What are the limitations to the "proximity" argument? Can you block the ball with an outstretched arm as long as you're within a yard or two of the strike?
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We did play ok - Taylor in particular was very good and Halkett is starting to look more like his old self - but I wasn't concerned about our ability to make things difficult for the opposition when we want to. The fundamental issues are at the other end and today didn't tell us anything new on that score.
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6 hours ago, Tony Wonder said:
It could be a worry, but it could also be that they don't want to include him and leave out someone fully fit and ready to go. Someone had to miss out anyway and if he could still be getting up to speed for the first few games it makes sense. Doesn't necessarily mean he's expected to be out for the whole period of the group.
That said, it is Hearts.
Let's hope so, but I've had a bad feeling about his injury for a while. I think last we heard he was hoping to be back after the international break and this is another delay.
The fact he won't be involved in the European games is a disappointment in itself obviously. He was really coming onto a game before the injury and he's been missed since.
I've also given up on signing a striker and am at the "maybe Musa will come good???" stage of grief, so to see him miss out is another disappointment.
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18 hours ago, Darren said:
Playing Minsk in Azerbaijan makes it more of a banana skin but the schedule has been relatively kind.
Pot 6 team away first, weakest of the higher pots at home second and pot 5 at home last.
Obviously wouldn't bank on it at the moment, but we could be in with a real shout after two games if we can get our act together. Four points would likely leave us having to 'just' beat Petrocub at home.
Heidenheim at home I don't fancy, might be a damage limitation job. But Killie, who have even worse results than us in the league, have shown both Cercle Bruges and Copenhagen aren't amazing.
I think we'd look back on this as a real missed opportunity if we don't make the playoffs. Given what happened against Plzen and the general malaise at the moment, the fear is that's what happens.
But I'm choosing to be optimistic and blindly looking at potential trips in February.
It's far from a gimme but it would definitely be a missed opportunity. We managed 6 points off the lower seed last time and doing the same again would give us a great chance.
Lack of goals is the big concern. The way the team is set up I think we're more likely to be able to get a draw away to Brugge than we are to comfortably beat Minsk or Petrocub, but draws aren't much use unless we can get a couple of wins.
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On 02/09/2024 at 10:01, DC92 said:
I get the feeling we won't see Nieuwenhof for a good while. It seems like an Aaron Hickey situation (also a hamstring) where he's constantly a few weeks away.
Now I see he's been left out of the European squad. Given the European games don't start for another month and go all the way up to Christmas, that is a worry. So much for being back after the international break.
Musa also left out. Given our lack of decent strikers that doesn't bode well for him.
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10 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:
The gap will widen before it gets smaller, but we need to keep focused on the big picture. I'd be shocked if it's not 14 points after our next game.
17 points after Pittodrie is not a mad idea. It's fairly realistic if we lose at St Mirren. But there is time to reel that back in.
We've got a run of home games in the autumn, and that will be crucial to our season. Looking at the likely lay of the land at that stage, we'll need to win pretty much all of them.
Long, long season ahead.
I said near enough the same thing on the previous page.
I don't think anyone is getting worked up about Aberdeen. They're just concerned at how much of an uphill struggle we could make this if we don't get our act together soon.
One thing I like about our fixture list is there are a lot of big games after Europe. Aberdeen twice, Hibs once, Rangers once. Those games should take care of themselves and we should be fresher and more focused for the more run-of-the-mill games.
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1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:
Some people (many of them Hearts supporters) are losing the run of themselves with Aberdeen.
Winning is better than losing, and you can't criticise Aberdeen for putting the points on the board.
But, f**k me, the cards have been falling for them lately in every single way. They remind me a wee bit of Hearts at the start of 2015/16. Winning games, but it's not convincing.
I saw their game on Saturday night. First I've seen them this season. There is absolutely nothing for Hearts to be intimidated by there.
That said, any third place finish for us this season is going to involve a real charge in the second half of the season.
But, first thing's first, we need to beat some c**t.
Is anyone actually bigging them up? The reaction was similar a few weeks ago when I pointed out that the fixtures meant they could easily be 10+ points ahead by October and here we are. 10 points behind would probably be a decent result at this point.
The chat about 17 or 20 points is a bit of a stretch, but it's true that the gap is likely to widen before it narrows.
I watched both teams at the weekend. The difference in performances was minimal. The difference in results was typical of a team on a winning run vs. a team on a losing run. One kept plugging away when faced with a stubborn defence and the other lacked belief and ran out of ideas.
That won't last the whole season and Aberdeen might not even end up being the team to beat for third, but we could do without the gap getting daft. I also have severe doubts about our ability to repeat last season's run given the failure to add any firepower in the summer.
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12 minutes ago, AndyM said:
Aberdeen play Hearts at Pittodrie in early October so given your record in sheepland, the gap after that could be 20 and that is definitely not recoverable. There's little doubt that Aberdeen will get overhauled by Rangers but 3rd place is starting to look like a long shot and you boys look as useless as us for spilling points stupidly.
If we have 1 point after 8 games having lost 9 in a row including home games against Dundee United and Ross County, we'll have much bigger problems than how far ahead Aberdeen are.
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1 hour ago, Galajambo said:
My personal feeling on this is that it's a great time to get someone new in with a Euro adventure coming up and using that as bait, the board might not want to get a new manager on board with his first game a trip away to Celtic though, and it seems like the writing will be on the wall when we lose to Celtic, and then confidence will be crushed for our visit to Paisley.
If we lose them both, and Aberdeen win both of their games against Motherwell and Dundee, all of a sudden there's a 17 point chasm, and that's never getting turned around and it'll already be too late. There's a prize of £5-7M up for grabs for finishing 3rd at the end of this season (providing a team outside the top 4 don't win the big cup), but it's the last season this prize is on offer as it's qualifiers for the foreseeable from now on, you'd like to think the board would do the arithmetic on this one and realise this. Oh, and Killie will undoubtedly start to pick up points as well, meaning that by the time the St Mirren game has ended, we're by far the bookies favourite to be bottom of the league.
The St Mirren game was brought forward from December and is being played on League Cup weekend. We're at home to Ross County when Aberdeen are at Dundee.
But yeah, there is very likely to be a 14 point gap following the international break. Given the fixtures played up to that point for each team I'd say 6-8 points behind would have been par, so we'd still have a lot of ground to make up, but not maybe quite as much as it looks.
Our fixture list becomes far kinder from December onwards. If we're within 10 points at that stage then we've got a reasonable chance. Keep this form up for much longer and that definitely won't happen.
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As expected, Naismith's job is not under threat according to Barry Anderson.
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5 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:
McInnes is obviously a good coach. But he's not a good fit for us.
Yep. His Kilmarnock tactic of filling the back line with big lads and constantly firing in crosses from the wings wouldn't work here because we simply don't have the players. He's taken a bit of time to build that team up after a fairly mediocre first couple of years.
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4 minutes ago, DukDukGoose said:
But, the squad depth?
Means you can cope with having to slot backup players into a settled line-up where everyone knows their roles. Not that you can make wholesale changes to personnel and formation every game.
Penrice and Boateng might not be first picks this season but they've looked like reasonable additions. Individual performances have been less of an issue than the absence of any tactical plan.
We also have no depth up front and have failed to add quality in the forward areas in general. Anyone would be mad to claim otherwise.
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16 minutes ago, afc_blockhead said:
Hearts were going to split the old firm based on a 0-0 with Sevco on the opening day according to a large majority of Jambos.
The reason a post displaying lukewarm optimism on the eve of the season is now being seized upon is because there were exactly 0 posts saying this. I did see a bit of it from fans of other teams though.
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I get the feeling we won't see Nieuwenhof for a good while. It seems like an Aaron Hickey situation (also a hamstring) where he's constantly a few weeks away.
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17 minutes ago, DukDukGoose said:
You've played in Europe twice.
And we've lost 3 league games, 2 of which were after Europe, and a League Cup tie where we rested a load of players ahead of a European game. Last season our results and performances after European games were noticeably worse than average, even in August.
The European ties themselves are far less of an issue than the way they've affected Naismith's decision making and the amount of needless f**king about with the line-up and placing of square pegs in round holes every week.
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I can't believe someone said they were looking forward to this season starting and that there was decent cause for optimism. What a loudmouth!
I'm pretty sure the same poster also predicted we'd struggle and be off the pace in the league while the European games were on, incidentally.
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OFFICIAL HEARTS JUGGERNAUT THREAD 2020-
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted · Edited by DC92
I agree.
The reporting is that he's after a minority share. The FOH own 75.1% so if he wants to eat into that or dilute it it'll require a 90% vote from FOH members.
There's no way to translate an EPL club's spending to Hearts, but we do also have the USG example.
18/19: 0 in, €930k out
19/20: €2m in, €1.24m out
20/21: 0 in, €300k out
21/22: €7m in, €1.16m out
22/23: €12.5m in, €7.48m out
23/24: €38.05m in, €16.6m out
24/25: €24.4m in, €15.9m out
That spending in the first 4 years isn't particularly unrealistic for Hearts, but the fees generated from those signings over the following years are way beyond what we've managed and have helped them incrementally increase their spending power.
As I said before, there's no guarantee that will be replicated here, but even a fraction of that trading success at Hearts would be a bit of a game changer.