VincentGuerin

Joe Cole would have been amazing in the 60s - 80s. He was a fantastic player, just emerged at a time when he wasn't wanted. A proper shame.

Hearts ruined Callum Elliott. He was an excellent young player who could have gone far in the game. He was messed about by the turmoil at Hearts when he was a young man, and the disastrous decision to send him on loan to Motherwell for the 2006-07 season. A bad move for him and for Motherwell, and a move in which he was given no support whatsoever as a young man basically being left to fend for himself. It's quite sad to hear him talk about it. He could have been a really good player.

On a serious level, Hearts have two eyes on the cup final and the only important thing about this game is fitness for any players coming back or needing a rest. Celtic couldn't wish for an easier fixture. 100% home win. Old Firm fans like to build drama in fixtures where it doesn't exist, but Celtic will absolutely stroll this and Hearts will not give a flying f**k.

Wake me up when it's over.

You can dismiss anybody when you remove context and whittle a career down to bare facts. But context matters. He's clearly a good coach.

I suppose part of the problem as well is what would success look like and how would it advance his career down south? Would getting Hibs into Europe get him a bigger job in England than he can get now? I don't see how. But getting QPR or Blackburn into the play-offs etc would raise his stock for sure. I don't think he's out of the question, but I think he'll have other jobs he'll look at first. I'd definitely take him at Hearts if Robbie was moving on.

I'd say his record overall is pretty good in an EFL context. Most coaches get sacked every five minute or so, so to have two solidly good jobs (Oxford and Lincoln) under his belt by now is very promising. Lincoln had a poor season this season compared to last, but last was a very impressive performance and you don't expect Lincoln to repeat that immediately. Apparently he wasn't happy with the budget on offer to rebuild his squad this season. Lincoln are a small club and roughly mid-table in League One is probably around their natural position, so this season isn't a huge catastrophe. I'd say on balance he's unlikely to get or take the job, but would be a good choice imo.

I've just done some in-depth research (texting a Lincoln-supporting mate) to see what he reckons of Appleton to Hibs. Response was that there's been a rumour going round that Appleton is wanted in the England youth set-up, possibly to be u-19s coach. However, his wife and weans live in the Manchester area and he had testicular cancer not long ago, so likely he'll want to be based near there. Blackburn? Appleton seems to have generally split the Lincoln support. From the outside he's done a more than decent job. But some fans complain about sticking rigidly to playing from the back etc when it clearly wasn't working. His argument was that he was building the team. Some fans disappointed he won' be around for a rebuild again this summer, others think time for a new man. Generally well thought of.

Appleton would be a really good choice for Hibs. He's good at building a team and I think Hibs are likely to be looking at someone with a good plan and giving it s bit of time this time around. He'll have a pre-season and the chance to bring players in. Like Aberdeen, Hibs don't really need too much to be easily top 6 next season, and Appleton is the kind of coach who is good with a bit of time and a chance to build his squad. Hope he tells them to GTF.

This is true. Since promotion with United he's gone from 24 goals in 26 to about a goal every four and a half games. I appreciate Beerschot have been shite too, but he's obviously part of that team being shite. We'll see how it goes, but he's not what I'd have been dying for.

Not sure about this, to be honest. He just screams 'excellent lower-league player' to me. Maybe we see something he can give us tactically, or as a squad player. But his top flight record suggests a real downgrade on what we have at the moment. I'm prepared to give Hearts the benefit of the doubt, given recent recruitment, but this isn't what I was hoping for.

Anyone see the Melbourne - Wellington game yesterday? An 8-minute VAR shambles from a goal that looked absolutely fine, leading to an investigation of an obscure foul, which then leads to the team who scored a goal being given a penalty, which they score. https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/a-league/128451908/wellington-phoenix-lose-31-to-melbourne-victory-in-chaotic-aleague-men-clash Our game definitely really needs this...

Where can I hear this deliciousness?

Tough to choose a high. Could be pumping Celtic on day one, the last-minute equaliser at Ibrox, pumping Hibs twice in a week, the fun 5-2 at home to United, the start of the season when we broke with tradition and won some away games in the league including a lovely sunny away day at Tannadice... Ultimately, I'd say the high point for me was in the pub about an hour after the semi-final when it sank in that, despite a relatively grubby showing, we'd done Hibs for the fourth time at Hampden in 16 years, were going to a cup final, and had Europe to look forward to next year. Lovely. The low point is a toss-up for me between the two pitiful displays at Pittodrie and Fir Park. Overall, nothing to grumble about.

Yeah. The coverage of them recently on Sportsound hasn't been a million miles away from what Cove Radio would do. I don't have a problem with Cove, I'm all for the deadwood being replaced by clubs with a bit about them. But it's been very arse-kissy.

I'm convinced. Closer to second than fourth or NEILSON AND BUDGE GTF IMO!!!! The season is back on!

No surprise here. He's been doing a tremendous amount of Cove arse-kissing in the last year or so.

I don't disagree with the sentiment here, but it's hard to see where they get a new crew from. Scotland isn't jam-packed with excellent talent for this kind of thing.

You clearly do not remember the coverage. It was a different time. Hearts fans sang about Hibs fans being gay, at Hearts away games home fans (of many clubs) often sang that one of our players was 'a fucking refugee' and another homophobic chant about Paul Hartley and Vlad was a Hibs favourite and often heard at other grounds too. It was that kind of time. The lines were in different places. Sportsound, and RG personally, massively crossed the line into at best xenophobia over Miko-gate. But it was one incident fifteen years ago when things were different and the media was different. I'm sure that on reflection he'd handle it differently now. Good guy for me.

David Begg and Alistair Alexander was the golden age.

Yeah. The only player ever to do so. Except Gary O'Connor, who had a worse dive in the same game.

Gordon has been an excellent presenter of the main show for a very long time and brings knowledge, genuine enthusiasm, and often a bit of fun to proceedings. He keeps the utter diddies he works with in check and keeps things moving very nicely. I have absolutely no problem with him being openly partisan towards Aberdeen. He's a football fan and I'm all for presenters and pundits declaring their interest and showing their real enthusiasm when covering fitba. I'm not a fucking child and someone supporting another team doesn't bother me. He didn't cover himself with glory in the Miko affair, but much of the country had a pretty ugly collective headsgone about that and I'm prepared to forgive. He'll be a miss.

Except you can't avoid this. Once you have VAR, you have VAR. And no matter where you start, controversial decisions will drive the news agenda and the list of things VAR is used to check will only ever get bigger, not smaller. Eventually there'll be a big decision involving a goal from a wrongly-given throw-in and throw-ins will become VAR-ed, or a quickly taken goal kick that should have been a corner in a big World Cup match, and that will start being VAR-ed. People who keep saying 'only use it for the big stuff or the obvious stuff' simply don't understand human nature or the news cycle. And as to your next point, if you've been following VAR in other countries, you'll see it absolutely does not prevent incompetence. You get absolutely baffling VAR decisions all the time. If you think it'll remove controversy, you'll be sorely disappointed.

I'll be skipping this one to go and see an as-yet-unchosen EFL game somewhere. Let Devlin run about for an hour or so. Nobody else injured, please. This end of season holiday is quite nice. We should be good more often.