Heart of Midlothian B 2024/25

[Burnieman]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

Maybe a younger keeper would have saved more than one penalty last night? Worth thinking about.

[Ranaldo Bairn]

OOT.

[ronaldincoo]

On 31/07/2024 at 09:59, craigkillie said:

Maybe a younger keeper would have saved more than one penalty last night? Worth thinking about.

Maybe if yer shitey wee team had a better second XI they wouldn't have got hosed at CP the other night ? Worth thinking about. Oh and congrats on the stunning Euro result by the 1st XI in whatever it is comp against some team from god  knows where.

[GordonS]

It's better to do the right things wrong than the wrong things right, because when you do the wrong things right you keep doing them and you just get wronger.

If it were Hearts' objective to pick up as many points as possible in the Lowland League then they should be very happy with how tonight's game went against Linlithgow Rose. But we all know it's not. The objective is to create players good enough to take on Celtic, Rangers, Viktoria Plzen, Hungary, Germany. So you'd expect to see them attempt to execute their skills under pressure, play on the deck, rotate from the back, play quick give-and-goes, do third man runs, all that stuff that improves your technical quality. Right?

Nope.

Tonight - same as the two games I saw them play last season, and the two games Rose played against Celtic B - the vast majority of their attacks were long balls over the top. This is a good strategy if you have a team of young and fast players and you're against defenders who have never and will never make a living from playing football. Their only two dangerous attacks in the first half came like this.

Hearts could easily have been four or five down by half time and probably would have been but for the quality of their goalkeeper, who has a good future behind him. Rose should have put the game to bed at 2-0 and 3-1 and that's on them, but chasing fast young boys tired them out, the whole midfield needed replaced and Hearts took advantage against a weaker, tired opposition to get a couple of late goals and snatch the win - which they did by outpacing Rose's knackered left back and whipping crosses in for onrushing forwards. Nothing but pace and fitness.

The technical standard of many of the Hearts players is pisspoor. There are guys playing in tier 7 better than that left back and they had one good outfield player tonight, Tait. Take away the pace and the fitness of the rest and Broxburn are better than them. Genuinely, Broxburn have a higher level of technique and create threats in a wider variety of ways. What those boys are learning will be completely worthless if they ever get near a Premier league opposition, never mind better teams than that.

I don't like the B teams in the LL but I could live with it if I could see it improving the national team, which is my bigger priority. But it obviously, obviously won't.

We can't bin this stupid novelty fast enough, for everyone's sake.

[PossilYM]

9 hours ago, GordonS said:

It's better to do the right things wrong than the wrong things right, because when you do the wrong things right you keep doing them and you just get wronger.

If it were Hearts' objective to pick up as many points as possible in the Lowland League then they should be very happy with how tonight's game went against Linlithgow Rose. But we all know it's not. The objective is to create players good enough to take on Celtic, Rangers, Viktoria Plzen, Hungary, Germany. So you'd expect to see them attempt to execute their skills under pressure, play on the deck, rotate from the back, play quick give-and-goes, do third man runs, all that stuff that improves your technical quality. Right?

Nope.

Tonight - same as the two games I saw them play last season, and the two games Rose played against Celtic B - the vast majority of their attacks were long balls over the top. This is a good strategy if you have a team of young and fast players and you're against defenders who have never and will never make a living from playing football. Their only two dangerous attacks in the first half came like this.

Hearts could easily have been four or five down by half time and probably would have been but for the quality of their goalkeeper, who has a good future behind him. Rose should have put the game to bed at 2-0 and 3-1 and that's on them, but chasing fast young boys tired them out, the whole midfield needed replaced and Hearts took advantage against a weaker, tired opposition to get a couple of late goals and snatch the win - which they did by outpacing Rose's knackered left back and whipping crosses in for onrushing forwards. Nothing but pace and fitness.

The technical standard of many of the Hearts players is pisspoor. There are guys playing in tier 7 better than that left back and they had one good outfield player tonight, Tait. Take away the pace and the fitness of the rest and Broxburn are better than them. Genuinely, Broxburn have a higher level of technique and create threats in a wider variety of ways. What those boys are learning will be completely worthless if they ever get near a Premier league opposition, never mind better teams than that.

 

I don't like the B teams in the LL but I could live with it if I could see it improving the national team, which is my bigger priority. But it obviously, obviously won't.

We can't bin this stupid novelty fast enough, for everyone's sake.

Is wronger even a word?

Are you a wronger?

[Tony Wonder]

12 hours ago, GordonS said:

It's better to do the right things wrong than the wrong things right, because when you do the wrong things right you keep doing them and you just get wronger.

If it were Hearts' objective to pick up as many points as possible in the Lowland League then they should be very happy with how tonight's game went against Linlithgow Rose. But we all know it's not. The objective is to create players good enough to take on Celtic, Rangers, Viktoria Plzen, Hungary, Germany. So you'd expect to see them attempt to execute their skills under pressure, play on the deck, rotate from the back, play quick give-and-goes, do third man runs, all that stuff that improves your technical quality. Right?

Nope.

Tonight - same as the two games I saw them play last season, and the two games Rose played against Celtic B - the vast majority of their attacks were long balls over the top. This is a good strategy if you have a team of young and fast players and you're against defenders who have never and will never make a living from playing football. Their only two dangerous attacks in the first half came like this.

Hearts could easily have been four or five down by half time and probably would have been but for the quality of their goalkeeper, who has a good future behind him. Rose should have put the game to bed at 2-0 and 3-1 and that's on them, but chasing fast young boys tired them out, the whole midfield needed replaced and Hearts took advantage against a weaker, tired opposition to get a couple of late goals and snatch the win - which they did by outpacing Rose's knackered left back and whipping crosses in for onrushing forwards. Nothing but pace and fitness.

The technical standard of many of the Hearts players is pisspoor. There are guys playing in tier 7 better than that left back and they had one good outfield player tonight, Tait. Take away the pace and the fitness of the rest and Broxburn are better than them. Genuinely, Broxburn have a higher level of technique and create threats in a wider variety of ways. What those boys are learning will be completely worthless if they ever get near a Premier league opposition, never mind better teams than that.

I don't like the B teams in the LL but I could live with it if I could see it improving the national team, which is my bigger priority. But it obviously, obviously won't.

We can't bin this stupid novelty fast enough, for everyone's sake.

Sorry this just comes across as a bit bitter and viewing things in isolation. It's a team of 16-20 year old boys, (MacDonald aside) and they are playing against men. Finding a way to win and showing resilience will help them develop. 

Also some of those boys you're dismissing have already shown they are good enough to be involved with the first team on merit. Tait is 18 and played in 2 wins against Celtic, Pollock has played in European group stages, Wilson has just turned 17 and had game time with the first team and also been coveted by some very big clubs. Sandilands, Stevenson, McLuckie have all trained with the first team, been subject of interest from England and most of those mentioned have played international football at youth level. Guys previously involved with the B team are now on loan at various levels higher in the pyramid, Denholm and Neilson in the Premiership and Stone and MacFarlane are in the Championship and L2.

Will all of them make it? No. But that's the same with youth players all over the country. When you look at the guys that come into the first team, they look much sharper because they've had exposure to proper football. I get the opposition to B teams, I don't think they should be in the league setup either, I think there should be a proper youth/reserve pathway instead. But equally, it is quite obviously not just being used by Heats to steamroll teams with no further interest in developing players, it has been and continues to be beneficial.

[Aylo vanal]

18 hours ago, GordonS said:

It's better to do the right things wrong than the wrong things right, because when you do the wrong things right you keep doing them and you just get wronger.

If it were Hearts' objective to pick up as many points as possible in the Lowland League then they should be very happy with how tonight's game went against Linlithgow Rose. But we all know it's not. The objective is to create players good enough to take on Celtic, Rangers, Viktoria Plzen, Hungary, Germany. So you'd expect to see them attempt to execute their skills under pressure, play on the deck, rotate from the back, play quick give-and-goes, do third man runs, all that stuff that improves your technical quality. Right?

Nope.

Tonight - same as the two games I saw them play last season, and the two games Rose played against Celtic B - the vast majority of their attacks were long balls over the top. This is a good strategy if you have a team of young and fast players and you're against defenders who have never and will never make a living from playing football. Their only two dangerous attacks in the first half came like this.

Hearts could easily have been four or five down by half time and probably would have been but for the quality of their goalkeeper, who has a good future behind him. Rose should have put the game to bed at 2-0 and 3-1 and that's on them, but chasing fast young boys tired them out, the whole midfield needed replaced and Hearts took advantage against a weaker, tired opposition to get a couple of late goals and snatch the win - which they did by outpacing Rose's knackered left back and whipping crosses in for onrushing forwards. Nothing but pace and fitness.

The technical standard of many of the Hearts players is pisspoor. There are guys playing in tier 7 better than that left back and they had one good outfield player tonight, Tait. Take away the pace and the fitness of the rest and Broxburn are better than them. Genuinely, Broxburn have a higher level of technique and create threats in a wider variety of ways. What those boys are learning will be completely worthless if they ever get near a Premier league opposition, never mind better teams than that.

I don't like the B teams in the LL but I could live with it if I could see it improving the national team, which is my bigger priority. But it obviously, obviously won't.

We can't bin this stupid novelty fast enough, for everyone's sake.

Hearts have had plenty youth teams play great football,  doesn't appear to get them ready for the first team.

 

That's what the B Team is for us, finding a bridge to the first team from youth team football as there isn't a reserve league etc. Getting 18 year old games against solid older players and learning their trade.

You sound a bit bitter, all reports I read said linlithgow were the better team. The young Hearts lads found a way to win.

 

[GordonS]

On 07/08/2024 at 11:44, Tony Wonder said:

Sorry this just comes across as a bit bitter and viewing things in isolation. It's a team of 16-20 year old boys, (MacDonald aside) and they are playing against men. Finding a way to win and showing resilience will help them develop. 

Also some of those boys you're dismissing have already shown they are good enough to be involved with the first team on merit. Tait is 18 and played in 2 wins against Celtic, Pollock has played in European group stages, Wilson has just turned 17 and had game time with the first team and also been coveted by some very big clubs. Sandilands, Stevenson, McLuckie have all trained with the first team, been subject of interest from England and most of those mentioned have played international football at youth level. Guys previously involved with the B team are now on loan at various levels higher in the pyramid, Denholm and Neilson in the Premiership and Stone and MacFarlane are in the Championship and L2.

Will all of them make it? No. But that's the same with youth players all over the country. When you look at the guys that come into the first team, they look much sharper because they've had exposure to proper football. I get the opposition to B teams, I don't think they should be in the league setup either, I think there should be a proper youth/reserve pathway instead. But equally, it is quite obviously not just being used by Heats to steamroll teams with no further interest in developing players, it has been and continues to be beneficial.

 

On 07/08/2024 at 17:15, Aylo vanal said:

Hearts have had plenty youth teams play great football,  doesn't appear to get them ready for the first team.

 

That's what the B Team is for us, finding a bridge to the first team from youth team football as there isn't a reserve league etc. Getting 18 year old games against solid older players and learning their trade.

You sound a bit bitter, all reports I read said linlithgow were the better team. The young Hearts lads found a way to win.

 

It's like you both decided to ignore what I actually wrote and made up in your head a story to explain it away.

No, Hearts don't play great football. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been getting hounded for an hour by a mid-table fifth-tier team of part-timers who will never make a living playing football. They bang the ball over the top more often than the worst clichés of old Junior football. Some of them can't pass a ball 5 yards and their touch is dreadful. I don't believe the academies of any similar-sized club in Nordic countries, the Netherlands and elsewhere has players whose technique is as poor as a few of the guys that played on Tuesday.

This bullshit about "bitter" is just a cheap attempt to undermine my point without disagreeing with it. First of all, I felt exactly this way at half time when we were 2-0 up and sent the WhatsApp message below to my pals' group. I'm don't get bitter about losing, I was happy for Berwick fans when they beat us a couple of weeks ago. That's how football is supposed to work.

I'm not bitter, I'm angry. My biggest desire in football is to see successful Scottish international teams. We have been massive underachievers for more than quarter of a century, producing much weaker players than countries that should be our peers, and this is why. We don't teach our your players technique, we teach them to "find ways to win". All our guys can run hard, tackle and keep their positional shape. Technically, we're no better than Kazakhstan and if it weren't for players developed in other countries or by their fathers we would be even further down the pecking order.

As I said, the way Hearts found to win will obviously do nothing to make those players better and taught them absolutely nothing they can use as professional footballers. On principle I'm against B teams in the Lowland League, but if they're here then they should at least use it to develop players. They're not, and if anything they're making things worse by wasting time and matches that could be used to develop better footballers.

I watched a lot of youth football pre-Covid when we had a real development league, and saw a fair bit of Hearts at Oriam. I'm certain that's a better way to develop young players than the farce I saw on Tuesday - although in Scotland the rot starts at much younger age groups anyway.

Whether you agree or not, you can believe the words I've typed at face value or you can make up wee stories in your head about how I'm just bitter because my team lost. I can't stop you from being wrong.

[Footballfirst]

47 minutes ago, GordonS said:

 

It's like you both decided to ignore what I actually wrote and made up in your head a story to explain it away.

No, Hearts don't play great football. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been getting hounded for an hour by a mid-table fifth-tier team of part-timers who will never make a living playing football. They bang the ball over the top more often than the worst clichés of old Junior football. Some of them can't pass a ball 5 yards and their touch is dreadful. I don't believe the academies of any similar-sized club in Nordic countries, the Netherlands and elsewhere has players whose technique is as poor as a few of the guys that played on Tuesday.

This bullshit about "bitter" is just a cheap attempt to undermine my point without disagreeing with it. First of all, I felt exactly this way at half time when we were 2-0 up and sent the WhatsApp message below to my pals' group. I'm don't get bitter about losing, I was happy for Berwick fans when they beat us a couple of weeks ago. That's how football is supposed to work.

I'm not bitter, I'm angry. My biggest desire in football is to see successful Scottish international teams. We have been massive underachievers for more than quarter of a century, producing much weaker players than countries that should be our peers, and this is why. We don't teach our your players technique, we teach them to "find ways to win". All our guys can run hard, tackle and keep their positional shape. Technically, we're no better than Kazakhstan and if it weren't for players developed in other countries or by their fathers we would be even further down the pecking order.

As I said, the way Hearts found to win will obviously do nothing to make those players better and taught them absolutely nothing they can use as professional footballers. On principle I'm against B teams in the Lowland League, but if they're here then they should at least use it to develop players. They're not, and if anything they're making things worse by wasting time and matches that could be used to develop better footballers.

I watched a lot of youth football pre-Covid when we had a real development league, and saw a fair bit of Hearts at Oriam. I'm certain that's a better way to develop young players than the farce I saw on Tuesday - although in Scotland the rot starts at much younger age groups anyway.

Whether you agree or not, you can believe the words I've typed at face value or you can make up wee stories in your head about how I'm just bitter because my team lost. I can't stop you from being wrong.

I think you are misinterpreting what you saw on Tuesday night as being the norm for Hearts.  If you listened to what Liam Fox said you would realise that the first half was the worst performance he had ever seen from the B Team.

Hearts didn't resort to playing long balls because it's their style of play.  It was their failure to play simple 15-20 yard passes with any accuracy, that more often than not lost them possession (partly due to the Rose's press and them winning the physical battles). Fox was on the case of the centre backs after the 2nd misplaced pass, the 2nd of many more to come during the 1st half and it had an impact on how the rest of the team played. Pollock was told to get himself "switched on" as Hearts were 2nd best all over the park. MacDonald may have had a couple of good saves, but should have saved the free kick (well struck but at head high on the side of the goals he was covering). He also sold the 3rd goal by coming out unnecessarily.

Hearts only got control of the game in the final quarter when Tait found space to drive forward and play a one-two (1st goal). The second goal was a good move to the bye line and a good cross to the back post. The third was a long ball, but would have been harmless had the keeper not screwed up.  The winning goal also came from a good move to the bye line and a low cross.

I watch a lot of academy football at the Oriam and I can assure you that Hearts, at all age groups, predominately play a passing game with pace. 

Rose should have beaten Hearts, but were wasteful in front of goal. That's the message you should be taking from the game.

[Tony Wonder]

1 hour ago, GordonS said:

 

It's like you both decided to ignore what I actually wrote and made up in your head a story to explain it away.

No, Hearts don't play great football. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been getting hounded for an hour by a mid-table fifth-tier team of part-timers who will never make a living playing football. They bang the ball over the top more often than the worst clichés of old Junior football. Some of them can't pass a ball 5 yards and their touch is dreadful. I don't believe the academies of any similar-sized club in Nordic countries, the Netherlands and elsewhere has players whose technique is as poor as a few of the guys that played on Tuesday.

This bullshit about "bitter" is just a cheap attempt to undermine my point without disagreeing with it. First of all, I felt exactly this way at half time when we were 2-0 up and sent the WhatsApp message below to my pals' group. I'm don't get bitter about losing, I was happy for Berwick fans when they beat us a couple of weeks ago. That's how football is supposed to work.

I'm not bitter, I'm angry. My biggest desire in football is to see successful Scottish international teams. We have been massive underachievers for more than quarter of a century, producing much weaker players than countries that should be our peers, and this is why. We don't teach our your players technique, we teach them to "find ways to win". All our guys can run hard, tackle and keep their positional shape. Technically, we're no better than Kazakhstan and if it weren't for players developed in other countries or by their fathers we would be even further down the pecking order.

As I said, the way Hearts found to win will obviously do nothing to make those players better and taught them absolutely nothing they can use as professional footballers. On principle I'm against B teams in the Lowland League, but if they're here then they should at least use it to develop players. They're not, and if anything they're making things worse by wasting time and matches that could be used to develop better footballers.

I watched a lot of youth football pre-Covid when we had a real development league, and saw a fair bit of Hearts at Oriam. I'm certain that's a better way to develop young players than the farce I saw on Tuesday - although in Scotland the rot starts at much younger age groups anyway.

Whether you agree or not, you can believe the words I've typed at face value or you can make up wee stories in your head about how I'm just bitter because my team lost. I can't stop you from being wrong.

I never said you were bitter, I said it comes across as bitter as its based on your views on 2 games.

No one said Hearts played great football. But also our own manager said that's the worst we've played in 2 years, we clearly aren't always so poor. Ask Kelty fans if they thought we were good when we played them.

You accuse people of ignoring your points while ignoring others that were made.

The B team ARE developing players, I listed loads who've moved up and been involved at a far higher level, again you've chosen to ignore it.

You've made no allowance whatsoever for their age, they'll find games at that level difficult, that's the point of it. Maybe you should actually give your own players credit for making it difficult as opposed to automatically slaughtering the opposition. 

Some of the players obviously won't make it, but there are 5 or 6 with a real chance and again, have already played for the 3rd best team in the country at 16, 17 and 18. Tait, Pollock and Wilson will have good careers.

I'm sorry you didn't see that the other night, but youngsters should be allowed to have a poor performance without being dismissed so harshly. Now that's a Scottish problem, wishing to write players off early doors.

Ask the opinion of other teams from the LL, there's no way your damning verdict is universal. 

Edited August 8 by Tony Wonder

[FuzzyBear]

44 minutes ago, Footballfirst said:

I think you are misinterpreting what you saw on Tuesday night as being the norm for Hearts.  If you listened to what Liam Fox said you would realise that the first half was the worst performance he had ever seen from the B Team.

Hearts didn't resort to playing long balls because it's their style of play.  It was their failure to play simple 15-20 yard passes with any accuracy, that more often than not lost them possession (partly due to the Rose's press and them winning the physical battles). Fox was on the case of the centre backs after the 2nd misplaced pass, the 2nd of many more to come during the 1st half and it had an impact on how the rest of the team played. Pollock was told to get himself "switched on" as Hearts were 2nd best all over the park. MacDonald may have had a couple of good saves, but should have saved the free kick (well struck but at head high on the side of the goals he was covering). He also sold the 3rd goal by coming out unnecessarily.

Hearts only got control of the game in the final quarter when Tait found space to drive forward and play a one-two (1st goal). The second goal was a good move to the bye line and a good cross to the back post. The third was a long ball, but would have been harmless had the keeper not screwed up.  The winning goal also came from a good move to the bye line and a low cross.

I watch a lot of academy football at the Oriam and I can assure you that Hearts, at all age groups, predominately play a passing game with pace. 

Rose should have beaten Hearts, but were wasteful in front of goal. That's the message you should be taking from the game.

Tait only found space after Maguire got subbed. Louis dominated him the whole time he was on the pitch.

[Auld Heid]

4 hours ago, Footballfirst said:

I think you are misinterpreting what you saw on Tuesday night as being the norm for Hearts.  If you listened to what Liam Fox said you would realise that the first half was the worst performance he had ever seen from the B Team.

Hearts didn't resort to playing long balls because it's their style of play.  It was their failure to play simple 15-20 yard passes with any accuracy, that more often than not lost them possession (partly due to the Rose's press and them winning the physical battles). Fox was on the case of the centre backs after the 2nd misplaced pass, the 2nd of many more to come during the 1st half and it had an impact on how the rest of the team played. Pollock was told to get himself "switched on" as Hearts were 2nd best all over the park. MacDonald may have had a couple of good saves, but should have saved the free kick (well struck but at head high on the side of the goals he was covering). He also sold the 3rd goal by coming out unnecessarily.

Hearts only got control of the game in the final quarter when Tait found space to drive forward and play a one-two (1st goal). The second goal was a good move to the bye line and a good cross to the back post. The third was a long ball, but would have been harmless had the keeper not screwed up.  The winning goal also came from a good move to the bye line and a low cross.

I watch a lot of academy football at the Oriam and I can assure you that Hearts, at all age groups, predominately play a passing game with pace. 

Rose should have beaten Hearts, but were wasteful in front of goal. That's the message you should be taking from the game.

He can say what suits - the truth was Hearts were outplayed in the 1st half and got away with one in a 2nd half where superior fitness of a full time team stole a result against 11 boys playing 90 minutes after a hard day's graft.

 

[Burnieman]

12 hours ago, Auld Heid said:

He can say what suits - the truth was Hearts were outplayed in the 1st half and got away with one in a 2nd half where superior fitness of a full time team stole a result against 11 boys playing 90 minutes after a hard day's graft.

 

Aye just out the pit so they were 

Does it come as a surprise to you that Hearts and Celtic have superior fitness?  if not, you've not been paying much attention.  Do some (non-B) clubs in the LL have superior fitness to others at different stages of the season, yes they do.  Uni of Stirling are not a team you have a fitness advantage over for example, they train most days.

Meanwhile Gordon seems to have lost the plot and blamed Scottish football's ills on Hearts B's crap first half performance at Prestonfield  

[Burnieman]

16 hours ago, Tony Wonder said:

You've made no allowance whatsoever for their age, they'll find games at that level difficult, that's the point of it. Maybe you should actually give your own players credit for making it difficult as opposed to automatically slaughtering the opposition. 

That's the bit that stands out really.  I thought Linlithgow were excellent in the first half, that performance would have worried plenty of SPFL teams far less a B team, the best I have seen them play for a long time.  Maybe that first half effort lead to them running out of puff given it's so early in the season.

That would have been my take away from the game if I were a Linlithgow fan.  All the rest of the stuff, well......

[Tony Wonder]

16 hours ago, FuzzyBear said:

Tait only found space after Maguire got subbed. Louis dominated him the whole time he was on the pitch.

Maybe give your own player credit then seeing as this is a laddie who's done very well at a far higher level, rather than claiming the B team are a joke and not developing players when they clearly are.

[Tony Wonder]

57 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Aye just out the pit so they were 

Does it come as a surprise to you that Hearts and Celtic have superior fitness?  if not, you've not been paying much attention.  Do some (non-B) clubs in the LL have superior fitness to others at different stages of the season, yes they do.  Uni of Stirling are not a team you have a fitness advantage over for example, they train most days.

Meanwhile Gordon seems to have lost the plot and blamed Scottish football's ills on Hearts B's crap first half performance at Prestonfield  

Why give your own players credit when you can immediately turn on some youngsters?

Claiming you care about the future of Scottish football while dishing out abuse to 17 & 18 year olds playing in a pressurised environment feels a bit at odds to me personally.

Anyway, doubt anyone will agree on this. Good luck to Linlithgow for the rest of the season,

[Footballfirst]

Strange game tonight v Tranent, but one where Tranent got their tactics right. Once they scored their soft penalty they were content to hold onto what they had and were very effective in that.  It didn't make for the prettiest game to watch, but paid off with the three points. 

Hearts dominated the second half but Tranent defended in numbers and limited the number of chances the Hearts had. The Tranent central defenders in particular were excellent.

[beachboy]

10 hours ago, Footballfirst said:

Strange game tonight v Tranent, but one where Tranent got their tactics right. Once they scored their soft penalty they were content to hold onto what they had and were very effective in that.  It didn't make for the prettiest game to watch, but paid off with the three points. 

Hearts dominated the second half but Tranent defended in numbers and limited the number of chances the Hearts had. The Tranent central defenders in particular were excellent.

Soft penalty, Viola skips past the defender and the player catches him with a late challenge, referee had no hesitation in awarding it.

Tranent had the better of the clear cut chances, but I do agree that Hearts had the bulk of the ball. Good disciplined team performance from Tranent and a much needed 3 points.

Hearts wont lose too many points at Ainslie Park throughout the season.

[Burnieman]

Looked a penalty to me, and should have had a second if (Girdwood?) had hit his effort a little harder, MacDonald wouldn't have got back to smother it just before it went over the line.  Mind you Hearts hit the post and also had a couple of glaring chances first half.

Tranent defended really well second half, compact and not allowing Hearts in behind them very often.  Like Linlithgow, they look much stronger than last season.  Going to be an interesting season.

[Aylo vanal]

On 08/08/2024 at 17:49, GordonS said:

 

It's like you both decided to ignore what I actually wrote and made up in your head a story to explain it away.

No, Hearts don't play great football. If they didn't, they wouldn't have been getting hounded for an hour by a mid-table fifth-tier team of part-timers who will never make a living playing football. They bang the ball over the top more often than the worst clichés of old Junior football. Some of them can't pass a ball 5 yards and their touch is dreadful. I don't believe the academies of any similar-sized club in Nordic countries, the Netherlands and elsewhere has players whose technique is as poor as a few of the guys that played on Tuesday.

This bullshit about "bitter" is just a cheap attempt to undermine my point without disagreeing with it. First of all, I felt exactly this way at half time when we were 2-0 up and sent the WhatsApp message below to my pals' group. I'm don't get bitter about losing, I was happy for Berwick fans when they beat us a couple of weeks ago. That's how football is supposed to work.

I'm not bitter, I'm angry. My biggest desire in football is to see successful Scottish international teams. We have been massive underachievers for more than quarter of a century, producing much weaker players than countries that should be our peers, and this is why. We don't teach our your players technique, we teach them to "find ways to win". All our guys can run hard, tackle and keep their positional shape. Technically, we're no better than Kazakhstan and if it weren't for players developed in other countries or by their fathers we would be even further down the pecking order.

As I said, the way Hearts found to win will obviously do nothing to make those players better and taught them absolutely nothing they can use as professional footballers. On principle I'm against B teams in the Lowland League, but if they're here then they should at least use it to develop players. They're not, and if anything they're making things worse by wasting time and matches that could be used to develop better footballers.

I watched a lot of youth football pre-Covid when we had a real development league, and saw a fair bit of Hearts at Oriam. I'm certain that's a better way to develop young players than the farce I saw on Tuesday - although in Scotland the rot starts at much younger age groups anyway.

Whether you agree or not, you can believe the words I've typed at face value or you can make up wee stories in your head about how I'm just bitter because my team lost. I can't stop you from being wrong.

Imagine claiming others have ignored what you said in your bitter tear stained post while completely ignoring the ones you quoted.

I never said Hearts B played great football.  I said we've had plenty youth teams that do and don't make the grade.

This B Team is about getting them used to playing mens football. 

You're blaming Scotlands ills on a group of 18 year olds who had a poor first half you absolute banger

You remind me of that mad c**t from killie, and you are called Gordon S which makes it funnier.

Edited August 10 by Aylo vanal