DC92
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Posts posted by DC92
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2 minutes ago, Leith Green said:
Re the "tactics" bit - I had mentioned early on in the thread that imv he blew it playing that boy from Wigan instead of Shankland from the start.
Its classic Neilson in a bigger match, looking to negate Celtic rather than attack............p.s. our manager is entirely the opposite and look how that worked out for us v Celtic last week.
None of them are perfect, but Neilsons record must be under heavy scrutiny now, as well as that poor wins record, its 11 defeats in 15.
I doubt there was anyone who disagreed with starting Humphrys. He's been our most threatening player in recent games, he's got pace to run in behind and he's better in the press than Shankland. The relative performances of the two in the Fiorentina games showed that Humphrys is the choice in fixtures like this. Obviously Shankland was very handy to have on in a game we ended up getting 2 penalties though.
The recent record is obviously crap but it comes with huge caveats. Half the games were against the Old Firm or in Europe. Some were post-split last season when we were playing the reserves ahead of the cup final.
Against non-OF Scottish teams this season it's P9, W4, D2 L3 - really not that bad. With either of Halkett or Rowles available it's P4 W3 D1 L0. He's also not responsible for some of the ridiculous misses at 0-0 v Killie and Aberdeen. When you look beyond the headline numbers it isn't close to sacking territory.
The defining f**k-up this season so far was not signing another defender and it's led to some predictable embarrassments when we've played superior opposition. Whether that's down to Neilson, Savage, or a bit of both, I don't know. Even then, any team outside the OF is going to struggle when you take away the two first choice CBs for this length of time (not to mention plenty of others).
If we still can't buy a win in the coming weeks when the fixture list gets a bit kinder then fair enough, but his job is rightly safe for now.
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3 minutes ago, Leith Green said:
Shitebag tactics? It's almost as if you had this drafted before the game and decided to send it anyway.
We were the better team in the first half today and the tactics worked as well as they could have really. My only criticism is that Celtic had too much space in front of our box in the second half and maybe we should have moved to tighten up the midfield a bit more, but not doing so wasn't a shitebag move. Our defensive frailties were always likely to tell anyway.
As for being 7th, we'll be a maximum of 5 points behind third by the end of the weekend. I think it's critical we don't fall any further behind by the World Cup, but there are some things in our favour. We've played Celtic and Rangers 3 times, Hibs and St Mirren have played them twice and Aberdeen only once. We've only had 3 home games against non-OF teams (winning them all) while Hibs and Aberdeen have had 5 and St Mirren will have had 6 after today. We also have a game in hand on Hibs and Halkett and Rowles are back in training.
Obviously I'd rather have the points on the board and there have been some awful performances recently, but it's been a b*****d of a fixture list and a b*****d of an injury list and we're still in it. Next week at Ross County is huge.
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Created plenty of chances but unsurprisingly a disaster at the back and we look done in now.
Duk has bullied Neilson all game.
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You have got to be fucking kidding me
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The aversion to playing Haring at centre-back is fucking baffling to me. Cochrane will never be a CB.
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38 minutes ago, Joe Terrapin said:
Yes and maybe we'll draw the second half like those plucky Hearts boys did.
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3 hours ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:
4-0.
I'll take it
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11 minutes ago, Tony Wonder said:
Sibbick is nowhere near as bad as made out. He's made mistakes, but he'd still be a better option than Neilson or playing 3 left backs in a 4 at this point. However, the fact he never played yesterday and never even came on when we got an injury suggests Neilson just isn't entertaining the thought of playing him just now.
Better than playing three left-backs? Probably. Better than Neilson? Maybe.
Making the odd mistake like not clearing his lines in the semi-final is one thing. Frequently getting caught out of position or letting men run off him is another. He's also not particularly great in the air or on the ball, so I'm not seeing it. There are probably benchwarmers in the bottom 6 who'd do a better job.
He's been less bad in the middle of a three so I might be tempted to play him there on Thursday with Kingsley and Smith (if fit) either side and Cochrane and Atkinson at wing-back. Devlin, Grant and Kio/Halliday in midfield and Humphrys and Shankland up front. I still don't see that team averting another hammering though.
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55 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:
Wasn't Kye Rowles the Souttar replacement?
Although replacing Souttar's injury problems probably wasn't part of the plan
Souttar played almost all his games last season on the right of a back three, occasionally in the middle of a three and occasionally on the right of a two. Kye Rowles has only played on the left of a two or the left of a three for us. There's no overlap there, so I would say no.
Even if he is the Souttar replacement, who is the Moore replacement? Moore wasn't up to much, but he was reasonably experienced cover and he also filled in at right-back when needed.
Even with the better options we had last season, we looked really vulnerable and lacking in out-and-out defenders when Souttar and Halkett were both out. Despite the significantly increased budget, the difference without Halkett and Rowles this season is even more acute.
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27 minutes ago, paranoid android said:
I agree that we should have strengthened at RCB/RB, but, to be fair, we'd be in a stronger position if Sibbick was performing better - I'd probably say the same for Atkinson - we might have to use both on Thursday.
I believe Atkinson was decent on Sunday apart from his goal.
Up to them if they want to claim a regular starting place.
To be more fair, Sibbick looked rubbish last season. "Let's not sign a Souttar replacement because we've got Toby Sibbick" would not have been a sound plan at any point.
I think we'll see Atkinson again on Thursday. Unfortunately I think we'll also see the Kingsley-Cochrane partnership at CB.
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Craig Gordon bailed out by Natty Atkinson, who put in a competent and assured performance throughout. Sentences you have to read twice.
That performance brought back memories of a 3-3 draw at McDiarmid under Stendel, which also finished with a right-back scoring a brilliant volley in injury time. That's not a good thing.
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We are an utter fucking calamity at the moment
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That was worse than Iwelumo. Inexcusably bad.
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No centre-backs again. Neilson and Sibbick left on the bench.
Surely Haring is worth another try there by this point?
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22 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:
Sort of. But I think some of this is just unavoidable.
For example, how many centre-halves is it reasonable to have? I don't think many clubs could really cope with having their two first picks in that position injured for weeks on end while playing lots of games. And games against good sides.
And that has a knock-on effect through the team. We're weak at the back as a result, so there's more pressure on a midfield already missing our best player in that position too. Then we lost Boyce, again a player who helps us control possession and keep the heat off a weak back line. We've hit a perfect storm.
The transfer activity could have been better, but the club can reasonably point out that, Craig Gordon aside, we've just been hit with exactly the injuries that will hurt us most.
Tactically Neilson has been (is?) poor, but it's unarguable that we'd be much better off even if we had two of Baningime, Halkett, Boyce, and Rowles available just now. There's only so much you can plan for.
I agree with most of what you've said but I don't think the current lack of depth in defence is acceptable.
Last season we lacked a proper no-nonsense defender to cover Halkett and results massively suffered when he was out of the team. We've also since lost Souttar and Moore, both of whom covered the right hand side of defence. While talking about needing to add quality and extra depth all over the pitch, we brought in a left-sided defender from Australia and a teenager who's barely played a game at Premiership level. Thankfully Rowles has looked good so far, but overall that's a significant downgrade in experience and depth on the right side of defence when we were supposed to be doing the opposite.
I made this argument in the summer before Halkett and Rowles got injured and pointed out that Halkett missing a few weeks in September/October could be disastrous. Unfortunately it's proving as much so far.
The thing is, the club already knew this and agreed with me. Neilson was quoted as wanting another CB right through the summer. We took Joe Wright on trial before rejecting him because we wanted better. Then that chat cooled down in the last couple of weeks of the window right as Halkett and Rowles got injured. My strong suspicion is that we had a few targets and failed to get them.
The club has a stated policy of not signing players unless they think they're an improvement on what's here already. Anyone signed for cover is generally no older than 23/24. That's admirable in theory, but even a bang average, meat-and-potatoes, 30 year old Premiership level defender would have been a significant help in this run of games. After two injuries we don't have a single option who's just a proper defender and I don't think that's right.
I will say that I've seen comments that a defender instead of Kiomourtzoglou and that's just daft. I don't know if he's any good yet, but those people wouldn't be saying the same if Devlin and Grant/Haring had got injured instead of Halkett and Rowles. We needed both.
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It's almost getting to the stage where I wish they'd just announce Halkett is out for the season and put us out of our fucking misery.
I should be looking forward to it but the excitement of playing glamorous opposition in a big game is currently being overridden by the dread of playing a Serie A team with a left-back and a 19 year old in the middle of defence (if Kingsley is even fit).
I'm sure that'll change after a couple of pints.
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21 minutes ago, craigkillie said:
I've used the forum's search function to look through my posts about Hickey, and there's not really anything there that jumps out to me as being wild.
I'd say I've been an enormous fan since I started watching him for Bologna (he never stood out for me much at Hearts but he was very young). My main "negatives" and the reason folk have it in their head that I don't like him or whatever, was that people kept posting about how he could easily play RWB because he had done it already in his career, something that basically wasn't true at the time (any time pre January 2022). I've also said that I don't think he can play centre-back, which I still don't.
Since those posts, he has played it a decent number of times for Bologna (and once, very badly for Scotland), and has also started playing at RB for both club and country to a really high standard. But that in itself isn't a surprise to me since I've said for a while that I thought he could end up in that role.
There are quite a few Scotland players I've got it completely wrong about in both directions - Hendry is probably one of them because I was very unsure about him coming back into the squad at first when he was playing in Belgium, and I've held my hands up a few times about those (probably more on Twitter than on here because a lot of old threads on here stay buried).
Here's a selection of my Hickey posts - feel free to trawl through them all if you want
Well here's one from 3 months ago saying he's "not a very good defender at all" and that "all his strengths are about attacking". He's since produced excellent defensive performances internationally and in the Premier League, showing a maturity way beyond his years.
On 16/06/2022 at 10:48, craigkillie said:Have you ever seen Hickey play? All his strengths are about attacking and technical ability, he's not a very good defender at all. Every single Bologna game I've seen him spend most of the time in the other team's half of the pitch.
As for Clarke, I've already called out my own post on the other thread because my conclusion was wrong and definitely a bit of a knee-jerk. It wasn't the first and it won't be the last time I make a c**t of it.
I'm sure you'll say that the Hickey post was valid based on the evidence available at the time. I'd say the same for a lot of the criticisms I raised in my post about Clarke (Hampden performances, persistence with the back 3 without Tierney) but he's since proven me wrong by producing our most complete performance at Hampden to date and doing so showing the tactical flexibility I'd criticised him for lacking. Like your post on Hickey, I was wrong because I was premature and underestimated his ability to find another level.
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5 minutes ago, Baggio said:
Great to watch Scotland over the last week. So much to be proud of
From a personal point of view it was so good to see Stephen Kingsley come on and do his bit at the end. What a journey he has had after all those injury problems. From the start of last season when he was training with us before Hearts picked him up, to pulling on a Scotland top in his first competitive match in just over a year.
Glad to hear his missed penalty in the Scottish Cup final shootout 2 years ago was just a bad dream.
Good for him though. I'm just happy he didn't get injured.
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4 minutes ago, craigkillie said:
The Czech team was not hugely depleted the second time we played them.
I think that was also the game we finished with a back 5 of O'Donnell, McTominay, Gallagher, Considine and Hanlon.
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4 minutes ago, Donathan said:
I’m not convinced we were actually any better than them in that group though. Both beat each other 1-0 and took only a single point off Israel, but we were very lucky that we managed to twice face a covid depleted Czech side whilst the Slovakians lost both games to their former compatriots. We might well have struggled if we’d had to play Czech Republic at full strength.
I'm not sure how that's very lucky given we'd still have finished clear of Slovakia even if we'd lost.
We also missed a heap of chances in that away game and should have beaten them IIRC. We weren't great but they looked poor.
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7 minutes ago, Pie on a Roll said:
An absolute shiter by the sounds of it. Shows how quickly things can change in International football, they were looked at as a superior team only a year or 2 ago.
Two years ago we finished 6 points ahead of them in the Nations League while they were relegated. They were a bit better than us in WC 2018 qualifying but that was 5 or 6 years ago now. They've been in decline for a while.
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I won't say I predicted this level of performance, but I thought the complaints about Porteous before the game were way over the top considering the alternative was Declan Gallagher. I know Gallagher hasn't done much wrong for us but we've played loads of CHs in the last couple of years and they've all done ok and I think that's largely because of the defensive organisation under Clarke. Porteous is clearly the better player.
Hickey is just absolutely class. A wee bit less of an attacking threat than Patterson maybe but his maturity and composure is incredible for his age and he just always seems to make the right decision. It turns out that a two-footed £15m Serie A left-back CAN actually play right-back better than Stephen O'Donnell. Wild!
Fair play to Clarke for successfully shifting away from the back three. I thought it should have been obvious after the Euros that there are times it doesn't work but in hindsight my criticism of him was over the top for sticking with it in June. Consistency of squad selection and tactics is Clarke's way - any changes are made and gradually and with due care. Despite some high profile disappointments, you can't deny it's an approach that's brought about gradual improvement.
Incidentally, I think the back three is still an option for us in certain circumstances (only with Tierney fit) and we now look a stronger team than we were a few months ago by virtue of our tactical flexibility. Couple that with the emergence of Hickey and Patterson and the continued improvement of others like Hendry and things are looking pretty rosy again. We're now in a great position to qualify automatically for the Euros and finally put the "only got in via the backdoor"/"two penalty shootouts" stuff to bed.
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1 minute ago, Hoose Rice said:
Ukraine won the midfield in the summer and dominated. We stop their midfield like last we then we stop them playing.
Last week we had McGregor and McTominay with McGinn advanced and it worked well. I felt we could have kept that with Jack or McLean coming in for McTominay. Having both feels like it could be overkill to me and makes us less threatening.
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Hearts v Celtic
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted
Ok, VAR makes the match-going experience demonstrably worse, but at least it means the post-match discussion on this 7-goal thriller isn't dominated by refereeing decisions which had no impact on the end result!
Tedious, tedious stuff.