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Dylan Lobban impressed at left-back by all accounts (usually a right back?). Nice to know we have a future option there.

Noticed Liverpool and Crystal Palace both played double header friendlies in pre-season. Liverpool played two games back-to-back v Atletico Bilbao, Palace did the same v Augsburg. Fans only had to pay the price of one ticket. Would love to see us do something like that. Think we had a day when we essentially played two games v Cove and Turriff (?) on the same day, but it'd be nice to give everyone a taste of Pittodrie. The only issue would be if St Johnstone have enough players to field two separate teams.

Luca Stephenson looking less and less likely. He's played in every Liverpool pre-season friendly, including 90 minutes in one of their friendlies with Atletico Bilbao yesterday, so a sale now would be strange considering they clearly rate him highly. Talk is it'll be a loan at best, and Dundee United are more likely to be the destination since he was there last season so no reason for Liverpool to give him to us unless they want him to get European experience.

That ends any speculation about Dabbagh returning.

Aye but apart from all that, I think he still has potential It may be that he's not good enough for this level. His best period for Portsmouth was in League One, and since then he's had injuries so quite possibly isn't even as good as he was then. However, I don't think we've seen the best of him yet. As above, what level that best is, we'll see. Gueye was also written off, many on this forum were happy to return Nisbet to Millwall in January, and I also remember Nilsen being described as terrible after his debut (which was against League Cup group stage opposition). If we sign Lazetic, I actually would expect they would end interest in Nisbet or any other striker until at least January, and we'll go with Yengi, Lazetic, Boyd and one of Sokler/Ambrose with the other either sold or loaned out. So Yengi is here to stay.

Nisbet has only just began training again after his injury (last Tuesday to be precise) and Alex Neil had promised to have a look at him before deciding on his future, so he won't be leaving any time soon. And plus he's not fit enough to come into our team at the moment anyway. I wouldn't write off Yengi just yet. The chances he missed - they happen to all strikers. The problem for Yengi is he has no credit in the bank yet. I thought his performance was an improvement on Ipswich, and hopefully Celtic is another improvement. Interesting that Boyd was first on though ahead of Sokler.

Celtic won't be any more fired up than they usually are, so them being "out for revenge" makes it no more likely they'll win. If anything it might lead to it being in McGregor or Johnston's head all afternoon and they end up making rash challenges. You could argue, with Celtic (like us) not playing many competitive games and there being a bit of turmoil at the club with injuries, Idah under pressure, the manager criticising the board, the struggle to sign players - we're getting them at a good time. The cup final formation makes us more solid at the expense of not creating very much. However, I'd like to think with Tierney still struggling to last 90 minutes, that we can get at them down their left with Milanovic or Morris. I watched them against St Mirren and it's McGregor, McCowan and Engels hovering outside the box that's their real danger at the moment - with Jota injured and Kuhn away, again can Forrest go at it for 90 minutes? So we don't really need a five to quieten their wingers or to try and force them to play inside like we did at Hampden. I tend to think we'll stick with 4-2-3-1 and try give our front three another game together.

Re-the lack of friendlies, I do see the other side of it. A couple more friendlies may or may not have made the difference v Hearts. But we still would be saying we need a striker, an energetic midfielder, and that we missed a left back. And Yengi might still miss those chances and Knoester & Shinnie still make those mistakes for the goals. We're not going to be a full strength (we hope) until the end of the transfer window anyway. I think a lot of the complaints from Barry Robson used to be he had no time to work on things with the players once the European group games hit, because it was game, recover, travel, game, travel, recover. So, if you play a lot of pre-season friendlies, you have fewer valuable time on the training pitch. So Thelin has obviously prioritised that. And like I said, I don't think we looked unfit, and at times we knocked it about well, and while over the 90 minutes Hearts were better - there's every chance we could have taken something tonight but mistakes did us in. I'm disappointed we lost but I didn't see enough tonight to make me worry too much about the season.

Hearts had a few very good individual performances (thought McIntee looked very good for them, the type of midfielder we need) but they were just aggressive, forced mistakes, and we handed them their two goals. I don't think we walked off thinking they were miles better than us. At times when we actually got playing, individually we had a bit more about us, but look like a team that needs games. If that was a pre-season friendly I'd be thinking we showed signs of promise but need a finisher and need to be more aggressive when chasing those second balls. My worry was last week we'd be a little undercooked - fitness wise we're fine but no real rhythm to us. Easy to blame lack of friendlies, but was very little cohesion in that front three. Yengi - what I will say for him is he gets into the right positions, that's about all I can say for him. Milanovic and Aouchiche showed flashes, but neither of them hurt Hearts. Clarkson for me our best player. Great deliveries that deserved better finishes. Meh, annoying to lose to Hearts, but I don't think we're far away from still having a good season.

The goal is a series of errors. Shinnie loses it, Knoester slips allowing the first cross in, then Shinnie mis-hits the clearance and puts it into the net. We've been tidy enough in midfield, but haven't created much. Few times we've broke well on the counter and the final ball has been really poor. Hearts have won the second balls outside our box and when they do we looked panic. Shinnie is being asked to bomb forward a lot. I'd actually put Jensen over there and put on Devlin at right back. Milne also looking a bit nervous. Don't agree with the Clarkson criticism, think he's been one of our better players.

It shows, I think, an ignorance of Scottish football. Like "Why haven't You all been challenging the Old Firm, do you need me to come up and show you how it's done?" He'll soon realise there are two massive clubs we're all up against. That when you begin to put a good side together that might challenge, you very quickly find other clubs with bigger budgets coming in to snap your best players up. Bloom might find his large pit of money is emptied just trying to stave off interest from English League One clubs with bigger pockets than Hearts. Has the approach of others been poor, absolutely, and Aberdeen have underperformed for years that we only appear to slowly be trying to fix. But to win the league you essentially need to get lucky in one transfer window, surprise everyone, hope Celtic and Rangers have poor seasons, and get it right in one campaign before the vultures steal your best players at the end of the season. Even in England, the romantic Leicester City story, they haven't got close to a title again. Bloom is promising the days of a two-horse race are over and that Hearts will challenge every season. They're not even challenging for third every season.

Think the starting XI won't be too far off this. My only concern about tonight is if it's the white European strip or the granite strip. Result wise, getting more and more confident as kick-off approaches. The talking up of Hearts - much of it by Tony Bloom - is bordering on the ridiculous. They're a decent side on their day, that's all. Think a streetwise Aberdeen will win it tonight.

Great draw (presuming it's FCSB, I haven't really looked into Drita), but only if their current form continues. They had a very impressive season last campaign. Won the league & cup double (went from November until the EOS unbeaten in the league), and in Europe had some solid results such as beating PAOK three times, winning away to Qarabag, drawing away to Hoffenheim, beating Midtjylland, and making it to the last 16 of the Europa League (they did get hammered 4-0 by Rangers though - I don't actually remember that game taking place at all). On current form though, every chance Drita might do the business. I don't know if we prefer that trip or not.

Pairing 4 I think would be the one we want. FCSB (Steaua Bucharest in old money) have had a poor start to the season. Danny Armstrong (formerly of Kilmarnock) scored a hat-trick against them at the weekend in the Bucharest derby, and they were knocked out of the Champions League by losing home and away to Shkendija. Of course Drita (of Kosovo) could beat them, sure that would be a lovely trip for our Balkan lads. Clearly we want to avoid Panathinaikos who may well have found the shooting boots they lacked against Rangers.

So it is, it's the opposite way around isn't it? Aye fair enough. I've written to my MSP to request a postponement.

We'd be going into our Europa League play-off having played just one game (Celtic) if this gets called off.

God bless you Me and you are now BFFs for life.

I watched 10 minutes of his 90 minute Q&A with Hearts fans before I got bored. A lot of it appeared to be playing to the crowd. "The days of a two-horse race are over" - loud applause, etc. But I think he genuinely believes Hearts are going to pull away from the rest and be the Old Firm's equal. This is the third time in the past 26 years I can remember Hearts coming out with these statements. There was the SMG investment around 1999 that they said would mean there would be no doubt over who was now the third force. Then it was Romanov. Now this fella. Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition, but I would maybe wait until you've been in Scottish football for more than five minutes before dismissing Aberdeen, Hibs and the rest, and stating you're now up there with the Old Firm.

He played all over the place for Dundee United last season. He began the season at right midfield, was moved more centrally, and one of the games he played at left-back was in the 2-2 draw at Pittodrie.

Because that was the bigger story, and let's not lie to ourselves and pretend otherwise. No-one is talking about what a fine result that is for Motherwell. They're either laughing at Rangers, or the Rangers fans themselves are angry about it. Maybe you could have given me more than one hour to reply?

They don't. See the above explanation to Rico, the fixtures and results are generated by Opta. There's likely been an error because there are two Scottish sides in the women's champions league. It'll be fixed once it's pointed out I imagine. There's always a few teething problems at the start of a competition.

Everything is provided by Opta. The line-ups, formations, stats, league tables, everything bar the actual match report and live text.

It really should be quite the day with Hearts also playing at 3pm in Renfrewshire, and therefore their support arriving back at Glasgow central at the same time as Aberdeen, and potentially a few thousand Rangers fans kicking about ahead of their late kick-off at home to Alloa.

Tobers and Gyamfi out for "at least another two or three weeks", but everyone else fit for Hearts.