DC92

Andre Villas-Boas Some people are going to be very disappointed when they realise Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen haven't been perpetually digging around in the bargain bin of rookies, out of work English League One managers and guys who did alright for St Mirren for no reason.

Did ok the last time he was given an interim role at PNE (well enough to get the job permanently) so that would seem logical. I guess Naismith for the assistant role would also make sense given they've probably been working closely together.

If you look at everything purely on the surface level and only consider the question of whether he "deserves" to be sacked, then you could say it's mental. If you look at the trend in results and performances, analyse the reasons for that trend, and then consider the financial difference between finishing 3rd and not, it's a completely rational decision. No-one can look at our recent results and performances, the visible arguments between players and manager, and the atmosphere among the fans, and conclude that we're likely to turn things around in time to finish 3rd. Neilson has recovered from similar situations before, but he's needed a summer refresh to do so. On the other hand, we're 2 points behind Aberdeen and 5 of our remaining 7 games will be in Edinburgh. I think Aberdeen have 3 home games left and 2 of those are against the OF. It might well be too late, but the opportunity is definitely there if we can reset ourselves a bit. That would seem a very remote possibility under Neilson but it's plausible a new approach will give us the short-term boost needed, as it has done with Motherwell and Aberdeen recently. If that happens it'll be worth millions of pounds and would give us a good platform to appoint a better manager in the summer. If it doesn't happen then fine. Come the summer we'd have had to face the choice of binning Neilson or losing a chunk of fan revenue/goodwill anyway.

That'll be the same as almost any given manager for a non-OF club over the last few decades, then. Overall Neilson did a good job over both spells, but he's limited and he's stopped getting anything out of the squad, so this is (surprisingly) the correct decision. When he's not even beating St Mirren at home, which is basically his main attribute, he's not much use. Unfortunately past evidence shows there's no guarantee we'll be able to replace him with better.

Don't think it was ever that much. The screenshot above had us 7 ahead of Livi with them having a game in hand. I think that was as big as it got given we've only won twice since then. It was never nearly as done as the media or some of our fans were suggesting. We were 10 or 11 ahead of Aberdeen at one point though. We've had to be properly garbage to get to this point.

A few thoughts on where we are... 1. As was obvious after last week, third is 100% gone if we keep Neilson beyond today (if it isn't anyway). I'm not a fan of sacking managers ostensibly after a short run of poor results but the truth is anyone who's followed football has seen this thousands of times before: when the players have visibly chucked it, it's time up. And this run of results has been coming. 2. How did it come to this? It goes back to an underwhelming summer transfer window. Despite the money that came in, very little was done to improve the starting XI and a series of injuries left us weaker than last season. The good thing was that all the long term injuries (Baningime, Halkett, Gordon, Boyce) were known about by the 1st of January and we were in a decent position in the league to kick on. Then, while our rivals crashed and burned and then took the opportunity to remedy their flaws, we got a run of good but flattering results and then rested on our laurels. At no point did we have an unassailable lead in 3rd and at no point were we producing consistently convincing performances, but we did very little in the transfer window and persisted with shit tactics that had been found out until well after the rot had set in. The scenario we find ourselves in was predictable by anyone paying proper attention and we had multiple opportunities to avoid it, but here we are. 3. There is precisely nothing in the way the club has been run over the last decade to suggest they will recognise any of the above. It's just a few poor games. Injuries have cost us. We're still in the fight for third. Neilson got us there last year. Past evidence suggests we'll wait until October when we're sitting in 11th before anything happens.

I said after we beat Dundee United a few weeks ago that if we kept playing the way we were, the shite performances would start producing shite results. I thought our recent wins were completely down to isolated moments of quality or luck rather than any kind of pattern of play and I wanted us to be proactive and change the clearly flawed system which routinely sees us completely overrun in midfield. I'm not claiming to be a clairvoyant here - it was just extremely fucking obvious. I don't particularly rate Neilson but I at least thought of him as someone who generally takes the pragmatic approach. There was nothing pragmatic about lining up with a slow midfield two against a three today at a venue we usually struggle at and in a game where a point would have been a decent result. I know he's stubborn but it's bizarre to see him keep doing the same mental tactics week after week. There should be enough points in the available fixtures for us to take third but I've got very little faith in Neilson getting us there at the moment and both Hibs and Aberdeen have got their acts together. Hopefully this is a wake-up call because there's definitely no coming back for him if he chucks this.

Neilson might consider changing the system now at least? Haha, of course not. A midfield two of Kio and Snodgrass was just obviously a disaster waiting to happen.

Game over. Can't get a grip in midfield and forwards isolated. Who could have seen this coming?

Almost spot on, except Kiomourtzoglou starts in place of Devlin for us. We've used this system in 6 away games since the World Cup and it's looked convincing for maybe once for about half an hour against St Johnstone.

Both teams have based their league positions on usually winning their home games against non-OF teams which has partly made up for a lack of wins on the road and a uniform hopelessness v Celtic and Rangers. After tomorrow, Aberdeen only have 2 of these home games left (probably v Kilmarnock and Hibs), while Hearts will have 4 (probably St Mirren, Ross County, Hibs and Aberdeen). Aberdeen also have to play Rangers before the split while Hearts are thankfully done with that shite for now. I think winning those 4 home games would see us safe regardless of what happens tomorrow, but a draw surely knocks Aberdeen out of contention given the teams' respective run-ins. If that also gains us a point on Hibs then it's a decent result. Obviously a win would be massive. Unfortunately I don't fancy us to get anything. Our away record is pretty poor, Aberdeen's home record is pretty decent, and our Pittodrie record in the last decade is fucking shocking. We haven't been playing well recently and I'm also not convinced the players who've been struggling with injuries will be risked either given we're about to go into the international break. I'm not sure exactly how we should line up, but I think it's crucial we play a 3 in midfield. If we go 3-4-3 we'll lose.

You don't have to use your 2nd preference at all, and if you do it'll only be counted if your first choice gets knocked out in the first round (i.e. only Regan's 2nd preferences actually matter). Example: Round 1 Yousaf - 47% Forbes - 36% Regan - 17% Regan is knocked out. Her 2nd prefs get added to Yousaf's and Forbes' totals. Round 2 Yousaf - 48% (+1 from Regan) Forbes - 47% (+11 from Regan) No 2nd pref - 5% Yousaf would win in that scenario.

If he gets high 40s of the 1st prefs I'd imagine he'll be safe enough. There'll probably be a chunk of Regan voters who won't express a 2nd preference and Forbes won't get 100% of the rest. It's pretty difficult to tell without much relevant polling. Demographics/polls of voters suggest Forbes is in with a good shout but I think past membership votes tend to go with the establishment pick. I wouldn't be surprised by anything between Yousaf winning easily and Forbes nicking it on 2nd prefs.

Not sure I'll manage even half an hour of this. Obviously it's a very limited team that we've put out but we're losing all the 50/50s so far. Dreadful.

No Shankland, Humphrys, Oda or Snodgrass in the squad. Neilson only ever bluffs about players potentially being fit when they've no chance, not the other way around. Can't see anything other than us struggling to get out of our own half with that line-up.

Same with Humphrys (what a surprise that him being back for the weekend was also bullshit). I won't be shocked if neither are back til after the international break. Ginnelly is hopeless with his back to goal so we're in trouble there. Probably has to be him and Forrest again.

Not sure I buy the idea that Salmond had broader appeal than Sturgeon. Firstly, the SNP got more votes in 2016 and 2021 than they did in 2011. Slightly so in percentage terms, significantly so in raw numbers. The majority in 2011 was a fluke caused by the distribution of support between other parties and the vagaries of the AM system. I'd argue the relative struggles in the north-east were an inevitability after the realignments in 2014 and 2016, regardless of leader. Yes got thumped in the SNP's rural heartlands in 2014 with Salmond in charge and the Tories went on to completely absorb the sizeable pro-Union Lib Dem vote in Aberdeenshire by 2016. Brexit then saw a direct loss of support to the Tories in places like Moray/Banff & Buchan. These have always been Unionist areas where the SNP previously benefitted from fractured pro-Union vote and independence/Brexit not really being salient issues or even credible prospects previously. Even then, the SNP won Moray, both Perthshire seats, both Angus seats and 2/3 Aberdeenshire seats at the last election. They've not exactly collapsed. I'm not saying they haven't lost votes in those areas that Salmond would have kept, but those losses have been more than offset by gains in the central belt where there are more people and more seats.

There's the first.

That's why I've changed it to 5-0.

I have changed my mind.

I expect Hearts to invoke the spirit of David Milinkovic and ease to a 4-0 victory this evening.

But I'm not saying they've been a good government, I'm questioning the tactical wisdom of Forbes going hard on their record when 1) she is a senior member of that government 2) they are still polling strongly and 3) the election will be decided by party members who probably broadly quite like them. As I said in my original post, I think there was plenty of scope in this contest for someone with fresh ideas to win over a stale and uninspiring continuity candidate. Forbes was well-positioned to play that role and was probably making some of the right noises about taking a fresh approach and winning new voters. But going on national TV to say she doesn't think one of her cabinet colleagues should keep his current job (aside from being artless) seems to needlessly undermine a government that's in a relatively strong polling position and probably alienates significant chunks of the parliamentary party and membership. A bold choice.

I can see why Forbes held a theoretical appeal. A relatively fresh face with new ideas who might be able to build on existing support and reach new voters (Sturgeon even cited the need to broaden appeal as one of her reasons for stepping down). This idea is far preferable to a lower quality, less popular derivative of the current leadership churning out diminishing returns. Unfortunately for her she seems to have based her campaign in the alternate reality occupied by her Unionist commentator pals who've spent the best part of a decade writing weekly opinion pieces about how the SNP were finished, rather than the actual reality in which they've won every election by a huge margin and even increased their share of the vote in the last couple. It might make sense to trash your government's record like that when you're polling 23% and you aren't the finance minister, it doesn't when you're polling 43% and you are. That's without getting to the gay marriage stuff and the clown running through a minefield impression that was the first week of her campaign. She's really gone out of her way to royally f**k the natural advantage she likely had here.

Repeating opposition party attack lines against the government you serve as a cabinet minister so your quotes can be gleefully clipped up and shared by said opposition parties as widely and as often as possible, all the while probably alienating a sizeable chunk of the party members whose votes you need and giving your opponent an open goal to talk up their own "achievements". When you are competent.

A big result which keeps the chasing pack at arm's length ahead of a tough run of games. Hibs probably the only realistic challengers now. Performance-wise it was much the same as the last couple of months. Patchy and reliant on moments of luck/quality rather than actually controlling the game.