Les Cabbage

Elderly Gran and Grandad vaccinated this morning which is great news, my Grandad isn’t keeping great these days so it’s a bit of a relief, they were given the Brexit one. Bet Bill Gates can’t wait to get his teeth into tracking their trip to Lidl and how they enjoy their evenings watching Coronation Street.

Pish game of football, baffling line up, baffling substitutions. Porteous needs a break from the team, unfortunately we don’t have any centre halfs to bring in to replace him, Jack Ross could have signed one in 1 of the 3 windows he has had but instead we have 3 goalkeepers picking up a wage. Hallberg is by far my least favourite player at the moment, always passing the buck and hiding, when he does get on the ball his passing is abysmal. Irvine clearly isn’t fit because he was awful tonight. Doig was our most dangerous player on the park, worrying when a teenage full back is your best attacking outlet but even more worrying when we sub him off early doors. We are so boring to watch, overly cautious football, no identity, no leader, passive and weak. Jack Ross saying we showed a reaction from Saturday, the guy is totally deluded and making a total tit of himself, yet again. At this rate and with no fans in the ground and nothing going to change soon, I really can’t see myself renewing my season ticket for the first time in around 10 years, PPV for the next couple of games, again, I’m not sure I’ll bother.

Very good Jack, here are a list of the clubs we beat to get to those semi finals; Dundee Utd (in Championship at the time and still took us a replay), BSC Glasgow, Inverness, Cove Rangers, Brora Rangers, Forfar, Dundee and Alloa The guy is an absolute fud and he’s clearly scrambling now.

NULL AND VOID

Football is shite. Who would want to win a cup when there’s no fans there anyway? Just feel total apathy about that, it’s a relief I’m not at Hampden - although I would have definitely been back in the pub within 50 minutes or so. Fair play to St Johnstone though, bossed us, Jack Ross bottling a big game again, and I’m sorry but he’s not the man to take us forward, he won’t be sacked though. Cautious football and bottling big (closed door) games is here to stay unfortunately, bleak.

He took a while to get up to speed but went on and looked really good in November/early December but got injured again, he’s now back from his injury and is getting back up to speed again, although almost a one trick pony, he cuts inside onto his right foot every single time but still a direct and a dangerous player.

So aye, Saturday, I’m honestly not sure how I feel about it at all, St Johnstone are a funny team and no matter how well we may be doing or how badly they may be doing they always seem to get points off us, especially at Easter Road. Latterly we’ve picked up a couple of wins at McDiarmaid Park but prior to the game in February 2019 where Marc McNulty scored twice for us to come back and win we hadn’t won their since 2013, a game where Paul Heffernan and James Collins got on the scoresheet, good times. In semi finals however things have been a bit rosier for us, in 2007 and 2016 we defeated them twice as you’ll all probably remember 2-1 in 2016, a John McGinn raker and a David Murphy free kick in 2007 being the highlights. Another interesting stat, no Hibs player has scored in a game against St Johnstone on more than one occasion since Leigh Griffiths in 2013, this doesn’t include players that have scored twice in one game. Paul McGinn, Stevie Mallan, Christian Doidge, Scott Allan, Flo Kamberi, Adam Jackson, Marc McNulty, Oli Shaw, Efe Ambrose, Anthony Stokes, Paul Paton (og), John McGinn, Jason Cummings, James Collins and Paul Heffernan all finding the net for Hibs against St Johnstone since Leigh Griffiths scored a consolation goal in a 3-1 defeat at Easter Road where St Johnstone completely battered us to bag in the 2nd game he’s scored for us that he’s scored against the Saints. On the other hand, Chris Kane has scored against us in 2 separate matches for St Johnstone, Michael O’Halloran in 3 separate matches, Joe Shaughnessy in 2 and Steven MacLean in 2 within that time period. In terms of personnel for Hibs, it sounds like Newell will be fit to play which is a huge boost, we tend to look lost in midfield without him, I suspect he’ll come in for Hallberg but otherwise we’ll see the same team as on Saturday unless Marciano is fit which means Doidge on the bench but that gives us a good option if St Johnstone “St Johnstone us” and we need to chase a goal. Marciano McGinn Hanlon Porteous Doig Newell Gogic Irvine Boyle Nisbet Murphy Difficult to make a prediction, I suspect it’ll go to extra time with both teams scoring.

If you sign up for the £12.99 per month option and use the promo code NHL2021 you get your first month free and then just cancel it after. Starving Premier Sports of £13 Hibs St Johnstone

Naebdy likes a grass

For anyone that’s not seen Gogic’s goal, I’ve seen replays on twitter but not from the regular camera view so I suspect this may not pop up until sportscene, but after it hits the back of the net and bounces out Porteous goes to boot the ball in again and succeeds in missing the ball and absolutely booting Danny Rogers in the arm

Felt the two full backs were the best players on the park, Doig really looks the real deal. A game I never thought we’d win so I’m delighted. Every time we play Killie Stuart Findlay looks good, suspect he may go down south but if he doesn’t sign a new deal I’d love us to sign him. Anyhow, gaining points on Aberdeen, Celtic and Livi, the beers will flow in the Les Cabbage household tonight.

Squad is pretty light at the moment if you discount the players on loan at the suspended leagues, Steven Bradley looked decent off the bench against Hamilton, wide player, clearly has talent but probably a bit lightweight, will send him your way

I could understand it if it’s on the basis that while Marciano is out, we don’t want Craig Samson on the bench for a cup semi final, that could have disaster written allover it, however provided Marciano gets back fit again then I would rather he went out on loan and it would be a fair rationale for bringing him back. Fingers crossed League 1 and 2 coming back soon, it’s rubbish having less Scottish football to follow and read up about, so I canny imagine how pish it must be following one of those teams, not getting to see your team but having to see other teams play. Fingers crossed you get the nod to come back soon and we can send you big Kevin back on deadline day.

Hopefully he gets his chance, although if Marciano gets fit and he’s down to number 3 it seems silly keeping him instead of getting him game time, having said that, who knows if we’ll even get League 1 up and running again unfortunately.

I heard some of the money came from Hamilton Accies, something about a ̶N̶i̶g̶e̶r̶i̶a̶n̶ Malasyian Prince.

Doig is only 18 and it’s first season playing regularly and has been okay largely, felt he was good last night before he went off. Aye, Hallberg for me is rubbish, guy just doesn’t have any attributes whatsoever, I’ve said it already but if we can get Irvine in and punt him or at least stop playing him I’ll be relieved.

Yeah that’s a fair point, I feel we’re okay at winning the ball back and even when we win it high up the park we’re good at creating chances but when we have the ball it seems like as you say we are ponderous and unimaginative in terms of getting the ball forward, also a lot of teams are wise to this and happy for us to pass the ball about our defence knowing we won’t create anything. He’s made me look like an absolute fud with his turnaround cause I used to think he was dreadful and his political leanings really don’t help but Joe Newell is basically the only player that, when he has the ball deep, I feel we might do something, hopefully he’s not gonna be out for any period of time after he went off.

That was a frustrating night. We started off really well in both halves, in the first for some reason we stopped playing after 20 minutes, in the 2nd I felt we really struggled when Newell went off, felt a goal was coming before that. Frustrating cause it was totally there for the taking tonight however it was absolutely not a Celtic reserve team, 8 of the players starting played in the Scottish Cup Final, Shane Duffy will be on more per week than the remainder of our starting XI. In the end a point was acceptable but no doubt Livi will pap them and put pressure on us, would be really surprised if they don’t finish above us in the end. The problem is, that we have a solid base but so many players that just aren’t good enough. Hallberg, Wright, Stephen McGinn, Stevenson (apologies but he’s had his time), Gogic and the likes of Gray, McGregor etc are in that category too, I know we have a few players out but we’re relying on some of our weak players more than we should be. Hopefully we get Irvine and Cadden in sooner rather than later, Stuart Findlay too please Ron the Con.

Sure Romeo will be along soon to demand Celtic get given the points. The SPFL however will (and rightly so) give the points to Motherwell FC.

Celtic 3-0 Hibernian

Would have felt more confident of a win if they didn’t have half a team out. Celtics squad is massive and they will have a stronger team out than we will. Fully expect Celtic to beat us and then go on to lose their double header against Livingston to see them go above us.

Of what I’ve seen already I’d rate Irvine over Newell, different types of player though. Hopefully we do punt Hallberg if he comes in, or just punt him anyway.

Jackson Irvine eh? Be delighted with that

If us and Israel are first, a football match between us to celebrate?

I went to M&S yesterday for a treat, got the £10 dinner deal with my other half and we thought while we were there we get lunch for tomorrow. I grabbed myself a couple of the wee salads (2 for £3.50) and a wee reduced wrap with a sell by date of yesterday for lunch, cost £4.50 all in all, was class. However (the point of the post) she grabbed a sandwich, smoothie and one of the wee fruit snacks thinking it was a meal deal and it turned out they didn’t have a meal deal at all and it cost about nine fucking quid, £2.75 for a tiny wee tub of about 4 strawberries and 3 blackberries, cost fucking less for our dinner last night. Needless to say I’m still fuming about it.