Tony Wonder Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 34 minutes ago, Hoose Rice said: Aren't you one of the lowest scoring teams in the league at the moment? Although defensively sound I remember a lot of supporters wanting SN in because of this attacking brand of football he was going to bring? Get your point about winning games, of course, we are kind of similar just now in that aspect. I just don't understand the reasoning for appointing Naismith and the support behind it because of exciting football then not actually caring about that after all. Especially when he's not won any big games so far either both as caretaker or manager. We are, but I'm not sure that's a fair reflection in terms of not being high scoring makes us boring. Plenty games we've created lots of good, really clear cut chances, we've just been wasteful at points. Which is an issue in itself, but not necessarily with how we play. Firstly I guess I'm not really in support of him. If we'd emptied him a few weeks back he'd not have had much of an argument. However, there are signs it's slowly starting to turn. Against teams that are relatively open against us (outside the OF) we've looked pretty good IMO. Still made silly mistakes and by no means great, but it's been attacking. Hibs, Aberdeen, Rosenborg, even the PAOK home game, we played relatively well and were attacking in all of them. Where he's really struggled, and Vincent has said it, is if a team comes and parks 10 behind the ball, we've struggled to come up with ideas. That's a big concern, but I don't think it's because he's a boring manager or we've reverted to a certain type of play. Where he's bought himself a bit time is where we laboured early in the season, we never got a breakthrough, but now we are grinding them out. All in all, it's not been good, but I think I can see signs of him turning it round a bit. However, he has a brutal December so needs to get a big result or two. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoose Rice Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 5 minutes ago, Tony Wonder said: We are, but I'm not sure that's a fair reflection in terms of not being high scoring makes us boring. Plenty games we've created lots of good, really clear cut chances, we've just been wasteful at points. Which is an issue in itself, but not necessarily with how we play. Firstly I guess I'm not really in support of him. If we'd emptied him a few weeks back he'd not have had much of an argument. However, there are signs it's slowly starting to turn. Against teams that are relatively open against us (outside the OF) we've looked pretty good IMO. Still made silly mistakes and by no means great, but it's been attacking. Hibs, Aberdeen, Rosenborg, even the PAOK home game, we played relatively well and were attacking in all of them. Where he's really struggled, and Vincent has said it, is if a team comes and parks 10 behind the ball, we've struggled to come up with ideas. That's a big concern, but I don't think it's because he's a boring manager or we've reverted to a certain type of play. Where he's bought himself a bit time is where we laboured early in the season, we never got a breakthrough, but now we are grinding them out. All in all, it's not been good, but I think I can see signs of him turning it round a bit. However, he has a brutal December so needs to get a big result or two. Thanks for the detailed response mate. Appreciated. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 1 hour ago, Mr. X said: If Kickback is representative of the Hearts support in general It's not. The Neilson plane incident is a prime example of this. A bunch of wee fannies thinking they represented a majority view and pulling a stunt that 90% of the stadium was completely baffled by. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stylish Kid Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 2 hours ago, VincentGuerin said: Been done to death, but I don't think we should have been hiring Naismith. However, we are where we are, and if conceding fewer goals is a positive step. But I think a big problem he has is that we look clueless against teams that sit in, and we're facing a lot of it this season. Our answer is not much. Robson's Aberdeen seem a similar thing in that they find it tricky to play against sides they're better than. Far from a given they'll make up much ground in the fixtures they have extra against weaker sides. Similar but different. They can really dig in and get a result (e.g. Rangers, PAOK) whereas we collapse. They look incredibly poor against average-and-bad teams. We seem to dominate but not penetrate (hence a run of 1-0 wins with high possession), whereas Aberdeen only seen to play well against better teams. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dons_1988 Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 29 minutes ago, Stylish Kid said: Similar but different. They can really dig in and get a result (e.g. Rangers, PAOK) whereas we collapse. They look incredibly poor against average-and-bad teams. We seem to dominate but not penetrate (hence a run of 1-0 wins with high possession), whereas Aberdeen only seen to play well against better teams. We have seemingly designed our entire system around these games. Set up to play without the ball, press at key moments and be very direct when we do win it. It’s had a decent amount of success in performance terms, the trouble being that you can still very easily lose these games despite playing well. We look devoid of any real purpose in run of the mill league games. No space to get in behind and resort to long balls hoping something will stick. Given we have players like clarkson in the side, it’s pretty criminal we have no real creativity in these games. Robson is hiding behind the volume of games just now but if he doesn’t find a formula that works soon he’ll have no hiding place. I haven’t seen a huge amount of hearts, I thought they were ok in the game against us at tynecastle but put that more down to us being garbage. Was more impressed with you in the post split game last season. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stylish Kid Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 23 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said: We have seemingly designed our entire system around these games. Set up to play without the ball, press at key moments and be very direct when we do win it. It’s had a decent amount of success in performance terms, the trouble being that you can still very easily lose these games despite playing well. We look devoid of any real purpose in run of the mill league games. No space to get in behind and resort to long balls hoping something will stick. Given we have players like clarkson in the side, it’s pretty criminal we have no real creativity in these games. Robson is hiding behind the volume of games just now but if he doesn’t find a formula that works soon he’ll have no hiding place. I haven’t seen a huge amount of hearts, I thought they were ok in the game against us at tynecastle but put that more down to us being garbage. Was more impressed with you in the post split game last season. Yeah I obviously don't see a load of football anyway - Sportsecene plus a few matches in person and maybe some cup matches, but that's very much the vibe I've seen about Aberdeen. I thought Hibs beat themselves as much as anything in the semi On one hand I'd be delighted if Hearts had put up good performances against the like of PAOK or even Rangers. On the other hand though I i feel Robson is somewhat dining out on some heroic defeats/draws and a rising of Motherwell.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dons_1988 Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 22 minutes ago, Stylish Kid said: Yeah I obviously don't see a load of football anyway - Sportsecene plus a few matches in person and maybe some cup matches, but that's very much the vibe I've seen about Aberdeen. I thought Hibs beat themselves as much as anything in the semi On one hand I'd be delighted if Hearts had put up good performances against the like of PAOK or even Rangers. On the other hand though I i feel Robson is somewhat dining out on some heroic defeats/draws and a rising of Motherwell.... He’s dining off a couple of impressive results, more impressive performances and a number of mitigating circumstances that he can point to for the league form. I said in our thread, I can cope with our points total. There has been a lot of games and we’ve only had 5 home games domestically all season (out of 16 or something), plus we’ve had 4 OF fixtures already in the league. But the performances in games like st Mirren, killie, hearts, hibs, livi…have been absolutely rancid. Scarily bad. 3 wins on the bounce isn’t easy in this league so hearts are clearly onto something, even if not always pretty. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said: He’s dining off a couple of impressive results, more impressive performances and a number of mitigating circumstances that he can point to for the league form. I said in our thread, I can cope with our points total. There has been a lot of games and we’ve only had 5 home games domestically all season (out of 16 or something), plus we’ve had 4 OF fixtures already in the league. But the performances in games like st Mirren, killie, hearts, hibs, livi…have been absolutely rancid. Scarily bad. 3 wins on the bounce isn’t easy in this league so hearts are clearly onto something, even if not always pretty. In danger of becoming Mr Negativity here, but I think our recent wins are hard to be excited about. Livi were unspeakably bad, St Johnstone are garbage, and beating the pair of them 1-0 at home is really minimum expectation stuff. Looks good when the results come close together, but they're not impressive results. We played well at Motherwell and that was a bright-ish spot. As comfortable a 2-1 as I've seen for ages, with good subs and an assured performance. I can't say I'm looking ahead to our December with any optimism at all. I think we're likely to really struggle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dons_1988 Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 4 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said: In danger of becoming Mr Negativity here, but I think our recent wins are hard to be excited about. Livi were unspeakably bad, St Johnstone are garbage, and beating the pair of them 1-0 at home is really minimum expectation stuff. Looks good when the results come close together, but they're not impressive results. We played well at Motherwell and that was a bright-ish spot. As comfortable a 2-1 as I've seen for ages, with good subs and an assured performance. I can't say I'm looking ahead to our December with any optimism at all. I think we're likely to really struggle. I haven’t seen enough of you to really judge. But if you’re accumulating points and not conceding many goals it can go a long way. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeartsOfficialMoaner Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 I don't care about employing an experienced manager that will guarantee 3rd place if that is his limit. I'd like to keep gambling away with inexperienced managers hoping to find the next big shot manager who can win us the title. Winning the Diddyship is okay for a laugh but teams like Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen have to want better. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stylish Kid Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 33 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said: In danger of becoming Mr Negativity here, but I think our recent wins are hard to be excited about. Livi were unspeakably bad, St Johnstone are garbage, and beating the pair of them 1-0 at home is really minimum expectation stuff. Looks good when the results come close together, but they're not impressive results. We played well at Motherwell and that was a bright-ish spot. As comfortable a 2-1 as I've seen for ages, with good subs and an assured performance. I can't say I'm looking ahead to our December with any optimism at all. I think we're likely to really struggle. Then the counter is that last season we were winning by a couple of goals despite being the worse team (Motherwell away in particular springs to mind). And then when the magic formula of whatever it is that keeps you winning runs out you're stuffed.... This season we are having fairly dominant performances, but with marginal scorelines... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoose Rice Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 1 hour ago, Stylish Kid said: Then the counter is that last season we were winning by a couple of goals despite being the worse team (Motherwell away in particular springs to mind). And then when the magic formula of whatever it is that keeps you winning runs out you're stuffed.... This season we are having fairly dominant performances, but with marginal scorelines... As an outsider looking in, you boys looked a far better team last season than this tbh. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Stylish Kid said: Then the counter is that last season we were winning by a couple of goals despite being the worse team (Motherwell away in particular springs to mind). And then when the magic formula of whatever it is that keeps you winning runs out you're stuffed.... This season we are having fairly dominant performances, but with marginal scorelines... It's true, and we're on of these runs where the next 2-3 games will show either that we have been slowly building a strong foundation or just that we scraped a few wins against pish teams. As I said, December is where we're going to see where we are. I think last season was a bit different due to the situation with injuries and fixture congestion. Last season I think we were the third best team in the league, and in the autumn I think the way we dealt with very difficult circumstances was impressive. But the perfect storm of missing so many important players, that being exacerbated by the congested start (made worse by the World Cup squeezing the season), and a manager who lost the dressing room (and the needless delay in sacking him) conspired to see us make an arse of what should have been a pretty straightforward task of finishing third. We needed 58 points. I mean... This season I don't think there's the same mitigation. We don't have a crowded schedule. The coach has been in his role since the spring and had a full pre-season. The injuries aren't so bad. We should simply be performing better. Edited November 27, 2023 by VincentGuerin 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sortmeout Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 7 hours ago, Tony Wonder said: We are, but I'm not sure that's a fair reflection in terms of not being high scoring makes us boring. Plenty games we've created lots of good, really clear cut chances, we've just been wasteful at points. Which is an issue in itself, but not necessarily with how we play. Firstly I guess I'm not really in support of him. If we'd emptied him a few weeks back he'd not have had much of an argument. However, there are signs it's slowly starting to turn. Against teams that are relatively open against us (outside the OF) we've looked pretty good IMO. Still made silly mistakes and by no means great, but it's been attacking. Hibs, Aberdeen, Rosenborg, even the PAOK home game, we played relatively well and were attacking in all of them. Where he's really struggled, and Vincent has said it, is if a team comes and parks 10 behind the ball, we've struggled to come up with ideas. That's a big concern, but I don't think it's because he's a boring manager or we've reverted to a certain type of play. Where he's bought himself a bit time is where we laboured early in the season, we never got a breakthrough, but now we are grinding them out. All in all, it's not been good, but I think I can see signs of him turning it round a bit. However, he has a brutal December so needs to get a big result or two. Even though I agree with a lot of what you say based on Hearts semi-decent recent form but you do get the feeling with Naismith that’s he’s only one bad defeat away from being under pressure again. Hopefully this Saturday. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Wonder Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 16 minutes ago, Sortmeout said: Even though I agree with a lot of what you say based on Hearts semi-decent recent form but you do get the feeling with Naismith that’s he’s only one bad defeat away from being under pressure again. Hopefully this Saturday. I don't disagree tbh. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Insert Amusing Pseudonym Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 1 hour ago, Hoose Rice said: As an outsider looking in, you boys looked a far better team last season than this tbh. Going forward for sure. Defensively though we were hot garbage, we only kept one clean sheet before New Year and thar was a scarcely believable one at Motherwell thanks to the woodwork and Craig Gordon. Even then i think we had the exact same number of points after 13 games as we do now. We've been dull rather than bad more often this season 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craigie Jambo Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 10 hours ago, Tony Wonder said: His style just happened to also be shite. If you're boring and winning no one cares. If you're boring and losing you're goosed. I actually don't think we've been that boring under Naismith. Saturday was poor, but against Motherwell and Livingston we played some good stuff and on another day get more goals. Winning by 1 doesn't make it turgid by default. I also don't think we are worse, we look good defensively for one whereas we looked like we'd conceded at every cross ball under Neilson. This is a definite difference and we have reverted to 3 at the back because of personnel available Kind of resetting it back to what the players are accustomed to in order to evolve it from there; it's too much just now to add new players and new system and when more new players come in it'll be simpler to change shape etc 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topcat(The most tip top) Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 15 hours ago, Tony Wonder said: I don't disagree tbh. Apart from the Saturday part presumably 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Wonder Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 46 minutes ago, topcat(The most tip top) said: Apart from the Saturday part presumably Unless I actively want Naismith out... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topcat(The most tip top) Posted November 29, 2023 Share Posted November 29, 2023 On 27/11/2023 at 14:37, Darren said: It's not. The Neilson plane incident is a prime example of this. A bunch of wee fannies thinking they represented a majority view and pulling a stunt that 90% of the stadium was completely baffled by. Those of sitting past Row 25 can't see the sky anyway so we only got the noise. I'm not sure if that made it more or less baffling 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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