Shadow Play

Video of the interview on BBC website. His body language, comments and general attitude says it all. Any hint of confidence has gone. How can he possibly motivate the players for the next game? Nelms, time for you to stand up and be counted.

Let's be brutally honest here. He never really had any ideas. Hemmings, Stewart and Bain (of old) carried the team in a big way. You don't have to go through over 50 players in such a short time if you have a clear idea of what your doing.

Discipline has gone. Bain in the first half arguing with a few blokes in the Derry who were shouting he should have thrown the ball out to Kerr early instead of the big punt. Another sign of how Hartley appears to have no control of his players.

Tommy's a clever man. He knew United were in terminal decline! Anyway, you don't really believe United were serious in their approach for Wright do you? You really believe Stephen Thompson would have been willing to pay the compensation? Just a coincidence that there was no compensation to consider with Mixu.

...and yet it would still be a massive improvement on Hartley's let the other team keep possession and when we get the ball give it a big punt up to Haber.

Harltey will probably stay. The board are paralysed with fear. He should have been sacked after the Aberdeen game. The Hearts game was winnable and someone new might just have given the players a lift and given us a chance. Even at this stage of the season does Hartley even know what his best team is? He keeps chopping and changing the players in the hope that they have a good game. He's like a drunk at the roulette wheel changing from red to black and then back to red again.

Not a bad shout. He's certainly a leader on the pitch.

BBC has us down as having no corners and no shots on target at Tyncastle. This from a team that has two strikers Hartley brought in out on loan. The team he has created is shambolic. No balance to it with too few options up front. To make matters worse Hartley has loaded the team with too many defensive midfielders. None of them capable of getting a decent number of goals a season. He has got the basics absolutely wrong. He needs to go now in the hope we get some sort of reaction from the players. If he stays and we stay up how can he be trusted to even remotely create a balanced team?

Don't think so. When he does finally make the effort to speak to the press about time he took responsibility for what's happening. I'm not interested in another "we prepared them properly blah blah blah"

It's called history and tradition. Not something you'll be too familiar with I suspect.

Just watched the highlights. Gomis was incredibly poor for both goals. No real effort in the tackle leading up to the first goal. Second game goal he got pushed (more of a foul than the penalty IMO) as he made a poor header that led to the so called penalty. You've either for to stay strong in these situations or make sure you at the very least you immediately claim for the foul. Gomis does neither. He's simply not interested in making the effort. His body language says it all. As for Williams, both bookings completely avoidable, especially the second one. That's not commitment shouting, bawling and shoving. That's lack of discipline - nothing else. He finally gets into the first team and then gets suspended. With the current lack of options in players that's criminal. I Harltey thanks it's OK for players to slag off other players in the press how about he makes mention of these two. It looks like Hartley is staying so how about he does his job and at the very least makes sure every one of his players is 100% motivated and disciplined.

Players slagging other players in the press and Hartley saying he doesn't mind as it shows passion is not on. Saying his preparation for the Aberdeen game was spot on was unbelievable. It's appears the players have lost any respect they had for him. Get rid of him tonight and give someone just over a week to prepare for the Hamilton match.

Cammy Fraser - who is exactly the sort of player we need right now. Might be a bit old now but would still run and tackle better than Hately.

The reason Haber was signed was Hartley realised that his signings weren't good enough for the passing game (out the cup & bottom of the league) and it was time for the big punt up the park so yes it did smack of desperation. I always think pre-contract signings / early signings are a clear indication of a player that the manager is desperate to sign before any other team gets near them. These are the players he presumably had a lot of faith in: Loy - not good enough and out on loan - 3 year deal Low - constantly injured (was like that at Aberdeen so no surprise) - 3 year deal Ross - presumably doesn't rate him highly given the signings he has made since and his lack of first team games - 3 year deal Williams - presumably doesn't rate him given his lack of first team games - 3 year deal Vincent - does Harltey know his best position? - 3 year deal Simply not good enough. Vincent -

Surely Hartley must have some sort of say in the the contract, if only the length of it. It can't possibly be the case that Hartley sees a player he thinks has potential eg Jordi and the board unilaterally hands out a 3, 4 or 5 year deal. There must be some sort of discussion about how important Hartley thinks the player will be and how confident he is in the player.

We've had worse teams and squads in recent history but I doubt we've had a manager that has been backed so much both financially and in the press by the board in recent history. Regardless of the quality of the recent squad I think it's fair to say I'm struggling to think of a more unbalanced squad in recent history. The fact that Hartley is saying he needs to strengthen in every department is a definite sign that his signings in every department have been poor and not just in the last summer transfer window either. If Hartley's comments about Bain did backfire is that not another indication of him not knowing how to get the best out of his players and how best to motivate them? His confidence when things were going well is being showed up as nothing more than arrogance. He's out his depth and there is no way he should be allowed anymore money to bring in players he thinks are good enough. It will no doubt cost a small fortune to get rid of some of the players he has brought in already.

The trouble is you can't spend the entire season since Haber has arrived punting the long ball at every opportunity (no matter how poor the opposition), then practice a passing game in training for a week or two and expect the players to perform against the second best team in the country. We were knocked out of the League Cup by lower league opposition trying the passing game at the start of the season and we were in danger of being marooned at the bottom of the table when we tried it at the start of the season. Why did Hartley think the players could try it again with any sort of confidence or success? What happened was exactly what you described. Players not confident in their own ability panicking and looking for the easy backwards or side pass

Spot on dd23 In the interview McGowan talked about the way they train, passing the ball, looking for a pass etc. Sounds like a back handed way of him trying to say Hartely's not to blame. Hartley realised early in the season that we simply don't have the players to be a pass and move type team that have any real threat in front of goal, despite the fact they are all players Hartley has brought in. Either that or the players were not being trained PROPERLY to do this. We have been a big punt up the park type team for a large part of this season, with a fair degree of success with the arrival of Haber. IF the training concentrated on passing and looking for a pass as seems to be the case by the way McGowan is highlighting this part of the training then why did the players resort to the big punt up the park and far more worrying than that why did Hartley not appear to do more to change that?

Your Arab1975 aren't you?

He's treating the paying fans with utter contempt if he thinks he can simply say he and his staff prepared them correctly in their preparation for the game and then leave it at that. On paper how he prepared the team MAY have been spot on but it was blatantly obvious very early on in the game that it wasn't working and I saw no real change of tactics during the game. The biggest example of Hartley's appalling signings is the fact that he plays Ross on the left (who he clearly doesn't rate highly) and leaves out Williams and Klok (who he clearly rates even less). Williams was given a 3 year deal! This is presumably a player he wanted badly, given the pre-contract agreement. The board has backed him with money to bring in players and he has wasted so much of it on utter dross often on three year deals. He clearly can't motivate or handle his players either and Bain's attitude is a prime example.

Exactly that. Not a single mention of how got the tactics wrong (actually that should be single tactic of the long punt up the park) wrong). Not a single mention of how they are all his signings. Head in the sand stuff.

Off the top of my head would 2 minutes not be nearer 0.14% of your day? Damn it RandomGuy your boredom is clearly contagious. Mind you that would explain the state of the St Johnstone thread!

I stayed to the bitter end as well. O'Dea also had the decency to hold both his hand up as a way of an apology and acknowledgement of the poor performance. Harley's getting the blame because they are his signings and his tactics. Can anyone explain to me why we continued to play the long high ball up to O'Hara. This was either a pre planned tactic which Hartley refused to change or the players weren't listening to him if he was trying to change it. It would have genuinely been more effective to try to kick the ball out of play and defend from the resultant Aberdeen throw in. At least that way the counter attack would be slower!

Quite right Biggie. He can have no arguments if that did happen. Surely though he must know that he is now way out his depth. There is absolutely no question that the team has gone massively backwards this season, even allowing for the departures of Hemmings and Stewart. Way, way, way too many bad signings. That's not the sign of a good manager!

Let's face facts. Barring Kerr and Wighton (who both came through the youth system) every single player on that park was brought in by Hartley. It's his team, his tactics. Simply no excuses are acceptable for that performance. There were so many players that just weren't interested. It must have been clear to everyone, bar Hartley it would appear, that O'Hara was never going to win an arial battle tonight. Even after the first three attempts surely Hartley should have changed things and brought in plan B. Instead we simply kept on kicking the high ball up to O'Hara. Sorry but I am now certain that Hartley has to go. He has no tactics (other than a big punt up to Haber) and the players are clearly no longer playing for him. The question is when do we replace him?