DC92
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Posts posted by DC92
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Big game. Any kind of win will do.
Key deciding factors for me:
- Can Snodgrass play 3x 90 minutes in a week? I was surprised he didn't get more of a rest on Wednesday, especially having played most of the Motherwell game a man light in midfield.
- How hungry is Devlin going to be? Busting a gut to make an impression ahead of the World Cup or a bit tentative about picking up another injury? He's also started all three games since last Thursday.
- Are there enough goals in the team? Probably yes at the moment, but we've been heavily reliant on a couple of players. Since the start of October we've scored 14 goals but they've been shared among 4 players, one of whom is injured. Any kind of win will do but it'd be nice for someone other than Shankland or Halliday to get on the scoresheet.
- How will Sibbick handle Nouble? "Not well" was the answer in the last game but he's playing much better now and his 1v1 defending has been very good.
I'd have liked to have freshened it up a bit for this but, looking at the current bench, I don't think we have that option. My team assuming no more of the injured players are back and no fresh injuries:
Gordon
Atkinson Sibbick Rowles Cochrane
Devlin Snodgrass Halliday
Ginnelly Shankland McKay
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It looks close, but the postponement earlier in the season has led to quite uneven fixture lists for some of the teams.
We've only played 10 games against non-OF teams (only 4 at home) but we've picked up 20 points. 2 points per game is about in line with how we were doing last season, so I don't think we need to do anything in January to finish well clear.
Kilmarnock, by contrast, have 12 points from 13 games against the diddies. They'll be struggling to make 30 points on that form.
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Frustrating. Rangers were getting chances but I didn't feel we were under massive pressure before they scored and we could probably have nicked a 0-0 on another day. Ultimately we were second best and didn't threaten enough going forward aside from the odd flurry of corners. If he'd been fit this would definitely have been more of a Humphrys game than a Shankland one.
On the positive side, Kye Rowles was excellent aside from one slip late on, so calm and reads the game brilliantly. I see he had 8 interceptions tonight which doesn't surprise me - the one which led to the Ginnelly chance early on was superb. Sibbick is also starting to look like the player we thought we were getting when we re-signed him.
Thankfully we couldn't really have picked better results in the other games this round and we're in touching distance of third having played the OF 4 times and 6 of the other 10 games away from home. A win on Saturday would put us in a great position.
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The players put a lot into the game on Sunday. I wouldn't be averse to keeping some of them until the 2nd half so they're fresher for the Livi game.
This is a decent opportunity if we can keep them out for the first half an hour but I've seen this scenario plenty of times before and it usually starts with Morelos scoring inside 3 minutes.
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5 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:
I believe we're on 26 grand a day in total for the period they're away.
I think it's less than that because it's pro-rated based on proportion of time spent at each club in the last couple of years. Devlin will earn us the most but most of the Rowles money will go to Central Coast Mariners.
Still works out to something around £200k if they go out in the groups I think.
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1 hour ago, RudiSkacel51 said:(Hearts fan)
Thanks for the clarification, RudiSkacel51.
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While I'm optimistic, I'm also not getting carried away about finishing 3rd yet. We're in a good spot but it's also not inconceivable that we end up 8 points behind by the weekend.
Being slight favourites with the bookies is maybe about right at this point considering the fixtures we've still got to play, but Aberdeen are winning their home games and scoring plenty of goals and if they keep doing that they'll be difficult to overhaul.
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37 minutes ago, Tony Wonder said:
It's the point about having shite angles I'm on about. Doing VAR on the cheap is pish and never going to consistently give better decisions. I'm not overly surprised it's not turned over, but he gets to that ball first.
And while still images can be deceptive in terms of tackles etc, I think him making contact with the ball, which is before he gets to Moult, is pretty obvious from that. But even on the replays you can see the ball change direction slightly.
Agreed on VAR.
On the still image, it definitely looks like Gordon's hand is touching the ball, but I suppose it's also possible that it's a bit of an optical illusion and the ball is actually a few inches in front of his hand. My instinct is that he touched it but I'd also say it's not conclusive.
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The still images REALLY make it look like Gordon touched the ball, but those can be deceptive. When I saw the replays I thought it was a penalty but when I slow it down it's hard to tell. From the angles available to VAR it's inconclusive as to whether he gets a touch so I don't think you can overturn the penalty in those circumstances.
Only having a couple of angles to look at is arguably a flaw in itself of course.
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On the potential Gordon sending off, to me it looks like he gets booked in the first instance because he came all the way from his goal to protest the Grant red card. He didn't look particularly aggressive in doing so and he pointed to his armband after the booking was given which suggests it wasn't for calling the ref a c**t. If it's how it looks then Clancy made an arse of that. I wonder if that was in the back of his mind after the penalty award.
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Never minded Halliday as a person and gave always found it weird how much vitriol he inspires. Despite obviously being a big *** I think he comes across as a reasonable guy rather than the Lafferty-esque idiot he's painted as.
My issue was that I thought he was shite at football. Watching him put in completely ineffectual performances in midfield in the Championship season was grim.
I'm happy to say I was wrong though as he's been very good since the turn of the year. He must have played about 5 different positions this season as well. Brilliant squad player to have.
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Buzzing after that. We've got "easier" fixtures to come after the break, but with Ibrox in midweek we could have been in danger of leaving ourselves too far behind and giving ourselves a mountain to climb by then if we'd lost today.
I already had the "not our day" feeling after we missed three great chances before the red card but when that came along I thought we were truly fucked. At 2-1 I was just waiting for us to throw it away, but the players seem to have stopped feeling sorry for themselves in recent weeks and are showing a lot of character.
Snodgrass has added so much leadership, skill and composure in the middle - I was sceptical but he's been an excellent signing so far. I was also so-so about re-signing Cochrane but I was massively wrong because he's been terrific this season. I thought some tough games out of position at CH might have dented his confidence but he's properly stepped up to the plate in the last couple of weeks. Sibbick as well - I think you can maybe lay the blame for the equaliser at his feet but he's also been hugely improved since coming back into the picture and he seems to be growing in confidence and mental strength.
Halliday, Shankland and Devlin warrant mentions as well. All very good recently.
Despite all the noise our league form has been pretty good this season. We've won all 4 of our home games against non-Old Firm teams and overall we're on pace for 60+ points at the moment. In the last 6 post-European matches we've taken 13 points out of 18, 10 of those after falling behind or playing most of the game with 10 men. We're in a good place and the shouts to get rid of Neilson a few weeks ago look ridiculous now.
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Absolutely fucking immense.
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Rowles just on the bench for a laugh then?
This is horrible.
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Deservedly in front at half-time but this'll be a long 2nd half with this defence (even they've done fine so far).
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Not sure it was a red but Grant is a bit of a liability with these tackles he flies into. Another game where we were on top at 0-0 ruined by a red from him.
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With Rangers away in midweek we really need to be winning this to make sure we stay in touch with 3rd. We'll have more favourable-looking fixtures than Aberdeen after the break but if the gap gets to 8+ points before then then we're really struggling.
Neilson says Halkett and Rowles "might" be back which means they won't be, based on his irritating policy of over-promising and under-delivering on injury return dates. Conceding from a cross or two is inevitable so hopefully Shankland continues his scoring form.
Expecting the following, also assuming Atkinson's ankle knock will keep him out:
Gordon
Smith Sibbick Cochrane Halliday
Devlin Kio Snodgrass
Ginnelly Shankland McKay
Harsh on Grant who was excellent the other night but I'd be surprised if that's not the midfield 3.
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14 hours ago, Mr. X said:
Hearts first Scottish Premiership home game against non-Old Firm since August.
Weird stat that one.
Rowles and Boyce (remember them?) scored in the last one.
Rowles also broke his foot in that game and is due to return this weekend.
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57 minutes ago, Tony Wonder said:
Complaining about revisionism and then claiming we are regarding our consolation tonight as a "famous goal".
As for the seeded third, finished third line, it's true. We got £1m in prize money and lost to who we were expected to.
Should we have competed better? Fucking obviously. Have Hearts fans not been moaning about those defeats for 2 months now in total though? Because unless you live in some sort of parallel universe Neilson has been getting it tight for months.
As for getting hammered on aggregate, you got skelped 5-1 off Rijeka in your last European campaign. A team that are nowhere near the level of Istanbul or Fiorentina.
If Hearts fans on Twitter are getting to you I'd suggest unfollowing them. As said before, genuinely don't know a Hearts fan that gave a f**k about tonight given the circumstances.
HibsFan seems upset that Hearts fans aren't as annoyed as he wants them to be. Funny.
On the subject of wanting your derby rivals' manager to stay in the job, it's worth noting that our campaign - which was defined by ever-more horrifying defensive and midfield line-ups with each passing game - did not feature the biggest defeat by an Edinburgh side this season, nor did it produce the most embarrassing 3rd place group finish. Even funnier.
As for revisionism, I said at the start of the group that 6 points would be par. That was before we knew we'd be doing the whole thing well understrength, massively so in defence.
The manner of the defeats was obviously painful, but also pretty much inevitable given the quality of the defensive options and the strength of the opposition. We undoubtedly played beneath our capability in some of the games, but realistically our fate was sealed when we got those injuries and didn't sign another defender. Even then, the most likely outcome was 0 points from those 4 games.
On the other hand, 6 points from RFS was nothing like a given. Fiorentina didn't get it and Basaksehir didn't get it. In fact, RFS have played 10 teams in Europe over two legs and Hearts are the only team to beat them home and away. It's nothing to shout about, but it's a reasonable achievement and netted us a lot of money.
The truth is, there's not very much interesting to say about the campaign itself. Losing to the better teams was expected, doing so by a few goals was painful. Finishing ahead of RFS was expected, but getting 6 points and €1m prize money was a nice boost. Overall it's a 5 or a 6 out of 10.
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59 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:
I was thinking this as well. It's probably as well to get that run out the way while missing players then hopefully push on with a stronger line-up with more winnable points.
If I'd been offered this league situation at the start of October, I'd have bitten your hand off. I think we're pretty well-placed now and reason to be optimistic.
That's my thinking, although if we hadn't picked up that couple of wins on the road and Hibs had beaten Dundee United and/or St Johnstone we could have been 10+ points behind by now which would have been a nightmare.
We've been a bit lucky no-one else has been particularly consistent so far, but the team have shown a bit of character in this run as well. Of our last 5 post-European games, 4 have been away and we've been missing Halkett plus Rowles and/or Kingsley in all of them, but we still managed to pick up 10 points from 15, with 7 of those coming from losing positions.
Playing twice a week with a fucked defence and still grinding out results away from home and against tricky opposition in Europe can't be taken for granted, because we could very easily have been in deep shit just now.
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October was picked out as an extremely tough-looking month even before we knew how injury-ravaged we'd be. It's largely been a grim watch, but we've ultimately come out of it in an ok position.
As a rule of thumb you'll usually have a good chance of third if you can average 2 points per game against the teams outside the Old Firm (i.e. 60 points). We're currently pretty close to that on 1.9 PPG from 9 games despite only played 3 of those at home. Another encouraging thing is that nobody's doing any better on that score yet despite all having played 1 fewer OF game and 2/3 extra non-OF home games.
Maybe the tough run over September/October has been a slight blessing in disguise in the sense that it's not given us much of an opportunity to drop "bad" points in our weakened state. Our dropped points so far have all come from away from home or against the OF and we've been able to keep them to a respectable level. If we'd had a couple of home results like Killie in the cup then the outlook wouldn't seem so good.
It doesn't get much easier with (I'm assuming) still a bunch of defenders missing for Sunday and a trip to Ibrox next midweek but we've got a much nicer-looking run-in than our rivals after the WC, so if we can avoid any more broken bones and fucked knees and stay within 3-4 points at the break I'll be fairly optimistic.
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6 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:
Were it not for VAR that would have been a five goal thriller
Both goals were flagged offside initially were they not?
A very pleasing result yesterday.
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47 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:
There's definitely no reason to panic about Hearts. I keep going back to this, but I've been saying since the summer I expected us to be off the pace in the first half of the season due to the schedule. And that was before the injuries.
We're not badly placed all things considered, and the fixtures swing in our favour a wee bit in the coming months.
We need points on the board now though. Seven from the next three and I'll be very confident of finishing third. Six would be fine too.
The opportunity is there, but the pressure is much higher now than it would've been a few weeks ago. Next week looks big with us playing Ross County away and the teams above us all playing the OF/each other. If we can get a win that could have us back within 2/3 points with 4 winnable home games to come in the next 5.
We've been a bit lucky that no-one's really pulled away yet. It could easily have been an 8 or 10 point gap by now if some others had been a bit more consistent. Crucial we don't fall further behind before the World Cup.
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4 hours ago, kingjoey said:
Dave Cormack levels of spin doctoring there. Congratulations.
Very happy to go over whatever it is you disagree with there.
If you look at Aberdeen as an example, they're 5 points ahead but have played 2 fewer games against the OF and 2 more home games against non-OF teams. Nothing is guaranteed, but the most likely outcome from those OF games is that Aberdeen will lose both or maybe take 1 point. It's also not unlikely Hearts will win at least one of those home games (having won 3/3 so far). As I said, having points on the board is always better, but Hearts making up that gap is very credible once the fixture list evens out.
You're comparing that to Dave Cormack's appearance on Sportsound last season in which he tried to blame Aberdeen's poor form on bad luck, and claimed that results would change once their luck did. Nothing like my point, which is that Hearts can close the gap on 3rd by simply maintaining their current record against non-OF teams (Home: P3 W3, Away: P5 W1, D2, L2). Easier said than done, but no change in luck required. The players returning from injury will objectively strengthen the team as well.
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Hearts v Livi
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted
The team selection is obviously fitness-dependent and I would like to freshen it up but my concern with a Devlin-Kio-Snodgrass midfield is the lack of goals. Shankland would be the only player in the front 6 to have scored in the last 3 months.
I've given up on Devlin adding goals to his game but hopefully Snodgrass, Gino and McKay can start chipping in a bit more.