DC92
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Posts posted by DC92
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Obviously options are severely limited for an interim role but not sure about Naismith. Obviously he ticks the pashun box but on the pitch he usually seemed to channel that into petulance/frustration rather than providing inspiration when things weren't going well.
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There have been rumours about splits in the dressing room and discontent with Neilson among the squad for weeks. Based on Kingsley's quotes yesterday, the players had a half-hour meeting after the game on Saturday without the management present.
When it becomes players v manager, something has to give and it's not going to be the players. Whether Neilson did a good job or whether he deserved to be sacked isn't the relevant question. There was only one pragmatic option at this point and thankfully the board have recognised that.
Oh, and needless to say that sacking Neilson doesn't automatically fix the issues in the squad, but it is the first step.
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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.
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51 minutes ago, Tony Wonder said:
I thoight that initially, but I think it'll be Frankie McAvoy tbh. Already at the club, managed at a decent level.
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.
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7 minutes ago, Kev said:
Sacked for sitting 4th before the split instead of 3rd is fucking mental regardless of the recent run!
Unless you think that form is going to continue into the next season and result in bonifide relegation material then fair enough but imo it seems like the board heard ott fan reactions yesterday and utterly shat it!
Can’t help but think some other usual merry-go-round name will be in charge and you’ll be in the same position next season regardless.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.
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1 hour ago, HibsFan said:
Levein’s protege meeting with a similar ending as Hearts manager.
ZERO major trophies won.
ZERO impact in Europe.
Unfortunately the dodgy penalties and outrageous luck had to run out at some point.
Bring on their third relegation in a decade, please!
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.
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21 minutes ago, Tony Wonder said:
Can't mind exactly but 9 or 10 I'm sure.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Game over.
Can't get a grip in midfield and forwards isolated. Who could have seen this coming?
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14 hours ago, Thenorthernlight said:
Hearts X1?
Clark
Hill Sibbick RowlesSmith Devlin Snodgrass Cochrane
Shankland McKay
Ginnelly
Dons X1?
Gorter
Pollock MacDonald Scales
Clarkson
McCrorie Ramadani Shinnie HayesMiovski Duk
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.
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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.
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54 minutes ago, welshbairn said:
I'm a bit thick about getting my head around STV. Do your second and third votes matter in terms of giving your first choice an advantage? Say if you think the top two, including your first choice, will be close to level pegging on first choices, is it worth giving your 2nd preference vote to a third no hoper candidate rather than the rival?
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.
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1 hour ago, welshbairn said:
Noon on the 27th of March. I tried to find out about the average age before and it looked much the same as other parties, ie. old. I'm not sure if you can count Humza as favourite if you take second preference votes into account, I think he'll need over 50% of first choices which is a big ask.
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.
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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.
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54 minutes ago, Stylish Kid said:
Prediction: Shankland will be fit and Robbie is bluffing.
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.
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Just now, Tony Wonder said:
Shankland unlikely to make it apparently, never trained today. Great stuff.
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.
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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.
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There's the first.
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2 minutes ago, Darren said:
A far better team (on paper) than the one that beat Celtic 4-0.
That's why I've changed it to 5-0.
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23 minutes ago, DC92 said:
I expect Hearts to invoke the spirit of David Milinkovic and ease to a 4-0 victory this evening.
I have changed my mind.
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I expect Hearts to invoke the spirit of David Milinkovic and ease to a 4-0 victory this evening.
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6 minutes ago, Eddie Hitler said:
I don't think "but we won all the elections!" is a good shortcut to judging how well a government has done, its record, or the degree to which it has improved things - at least not in isolation.
Over much the same timeframe as the SNP have been in office, i.e. saving the first three years, the Tories have won each General Election. While the margins may not have been quite as large, are we to assume (as a shortcut) that the Tories' record is good and they must be doing right...because they have won all the recent General Elections and have thus (whether we might like it or not - and I don't) been electorally successful?
I don't think that can be right, and the usual reasons put forward (not without justification, I don't think) for the Tories winning are disengaged voters in some cases who don't really know what they are voting for, and in other cases voters who have voted because they supported a single issue constitutional change (Brexit). Accordingly, the Tories received votes for reasons other than some sparkling record in government,I'd suggest myself that the Tories have governed badly, but they have been winning elections.
It is eminently possible for the SNP to also have governed poorly, but to have been rewarded by disengaged voters who weren't really following their actual policy moves and those who voted for them because they support a single issue constitutional change (independence).
Now, it's up for debate (on a case by case basis) whether SNP initiatives in particular policy areas have been good and contribute to a good policy record or not but I believe this shortcut argument of "but they kept winning elections so they must have been good!" needs to be thrown in the bin because the Tories show us you can win elections despite being absolute horrors.
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.
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OFFICIAL HEARTS JUGGERNAUT THREAD 2020-
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted
Pretty sure Snodgrass took the huff with Steve Clarke as well before he retired from internationals?
He looked good at first but clearly became far too much of an influence on the tactics and hasn't contributed anything positive for months.
A bit of a disaster of a signing which we'd probably never have made if Boyce hadn't got injured.