RicoS321

That's a fucked up story.

It'll be interesting to see if we play a back three again. Very few complaints about it last night, and I think it suits us in many games. In fact, I suspect we might have switched to it last night with the next two in mind. I thought Nilsen was fine in the middle of the two actual centre halves too, and I'm not convinced that any combination of two of the three that finished is good enough as a two. With five days to recover, we should be fine, however the lack of subs last night was baffling. This seems to have changed since Doc came on board and is reminiscent of the McInnes days. Soldiering on with players who are clearly knackered, making mistakes, and just riding your luck as to whether you get punished or not. Bilalovic, Geiger and Devlin could all have been given a break last night.

Well that was a very bad game of fitba. A point definitely fair, with neither team showing any skill or creativity whatsoever. I can't believe we're banning plastic pitches when grass pitches are often like this for months of the year. It'll be a good three months before that pitch is suitable for football. Anyway, thought Molloy and Shinnie played well, and Nilsen was decent when he came on too. Everyone else was average, but they all seemed to work very hard.

Not good either, but aye, not terrible. Midfield looks okay, defence been okay. Olusanya not a footballer, and Bilalovic not up to much either. Cameron been a bit nothing.

Was that McIntyre that went off for Nilsen? The camera stayed on their box the entire time the sub was being made for some bizarre reason.

Cheers. Seems to be working well. It's like watching a game from the nineties on youtube, but significantly better than the skipping pish elsewhere.

Not a great start on the fawa stream. Fuck sake!

I remember when Tourette's used to be funny.

I don't disagree. I don't think Hearts winning the league will even make a dent in that though. If anything, it might actually restart the clock as it were. To be honest, I think that football is going so far in the wrong direction, there is very little that will stop it.

He's got a point though. Whilst it could be the start of a barren period for the scum, it seems unlikely. Hertz winning the league with zero further structural changes just means it's likely that the subject of the continued destruction of Scottish football gets delayed by another couple of decades. On its own, hearts winning the league does nothing for Scottish football.

We all knew that there was no update though. Many on here were crying out for there to be an update on the no update. He couldn't win, really.

I think Geiger would have to go a long way to be as good as Shinnie to be honest. I think fitness will make a big difference to him though, and we'll pass judgement when that comes. He did work hard, and once fit that suggests he'll have a lot more to offer. We regularly hear that we should be moving on from Shinnie because he's not technically brilliant and he's ageing. However, we've signed numerous midfielders over the years and none have got close to offering what he does. I think Shinnie would have been fine today, but he can't play at Wednesday's level twice a week regularly, so we'd have to pick and choose which games to play him in. Anyway, I don't think Geiger is here to replace Shinnie, I think that might be what Aremu is for, but he's weeks away from playing by the looks of it. If we can get Geiger to the level that Aouchiche was at before he left, then that'd be very good. I think he has more bite than Aouchiche, so if he can do the running then that'll be excellent. However, if we don't replace Shinnie then we'll be in the same predicament we were earlier in the season, with a weak as piss midfield of similar players. Shinnie, Geiger, Cameron is definitely our best midfield at the moment, so hopefully Geiger gets up to speed soon. I don't think forcing ninety minutes out of him yesterday was a good way to go about it.

There's no better version of VAR. The time was for the referees to talk about whether to send the player off or not. It's honking across the world, because it's a shite system, based on an idiotic premise. It always will be. That said, I couldn't believe that Morrison wasn't sent off before VAR intervened, I'm not sure what the ref thought he saw. Yep, this is where I am. I can't work the guy out at all. He could be completely shite, or he could turn out to be very good. Positionally, he seems to know what he's doing, and he's okay on the ball too. However, I thought he looked overweight, and is certainly not ready for a start. It was awful management. I don't think we'd have lost the third goal if we'd subbed Geiger. Nilsen would have been sitting in that area, and the defensive lineup would have just been more secure. Geiger wasn't offering a great deal going forward either, and a 70% fit player is rarely better than a fully fit one coming on. It was a glaring error by Leven. I'd argue not making a double sub in the first half, taking Aremu off, was also a mistake that led directly to us losing goals before halftime.

I like Leven. He makes some fairly astute calls at times (like recognising when certain players shouldn't be played on their wrong side), but then seems to follow them up with utterly inexplicable ones. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what role he plays when understudy, so don't know enough to suggest he should be binned entirely. In his defence, he's overseen a big turnover of players in a short spell, and been exceptionally unfortunate that his players have decided to take up red cards as their new hobby.

There's a politics thread for this. Your use of the new thread button is getting out of hand. I'm not one that cares about such things, but I'd be surprised if you weren't well on your way to a final warning.

Well that was pish. I hadn't seen or heard the lineup beyond the first 11, so I couldn't believe it when Milne came to the sidelines after Morrison sold the shirts. A fucking ridiculous call to play him, he's not ready for first team football. Dorrington probably had less minutes than this lad. Should have been a double sub after the sending off, as that midfield three clearly wasn't going to have the legs to cope. Aremu way off the pace, Geiger might turn out to be decent, but he's fairly suspect positionally and doesn't seem to have the legs. He might have looked good on the telly, because he has a bit of bite to him, but he arrived late to almost every duel (is that what they call it these days?). Palaversa isn't the answer to anything, of course. Shinnie is head and shoulders our best midfielder despite his legs having been absent for some time now, which is a real concern. Olusanya can't play fitba really, and neither can Keskinen. Cameron decent but again does a lot while doing nothing. Nisbet very good, again, working hard and a beautiful free kick. They're goal was an absolute peach, worthy of winning any match. We're in the shite.

Bit worried about our midfield for this one. Shinnie a big miss. Don't think Geiger and Armstrong would work, and not sure about Aremu yet. Nilsen and Geiger might be best. The wide players are a big concern, but unfortunately we need to play them. I think 4-4-2 would be our best option, but we can't play that with Cameron in the side. Similarly, we can't play Olusanya wide. A reluctant game for Milanovic and Keskinen basically.

A hard watch?

Exactly. Ryan Jack loves his home city for example, and Connor Barron. Not to forget Scott Wright who can't stay away from the place. We should welcome them all home. Probably wait until they're past it though, so we get them cheaper.

Will he going today, or did that game put him off forever? I was also there. Of course. And will be today. Mainly so I can witness the booing of Wright while not booing Cameron.

He's also a fucking Hun That aside, he's working hard and looks decent on the ball with little in the way of end product yet. I still think that number ten role would be better filled by Armstrong.

Also, it was one of the hottest years ever last year and we didn't have rain from April to nearly November. He was just pish.

I've not compared them, necessarily, other than by the position they play. Too early to say if Geiger is similar, just that they occupy a similar role. It was clear to anyone watching Aouchiche (apart from Thelin) from his first game that he wasn't an attacking midfielder. He was very similar to Ramadani. Ran up and down all day long, good at harassing players and very good at intercepting. Good on the ball, in terms of retention, but not a particularly progressive passer, and not someone who would shoot unless required. His biggest attribute was the ground he would cover, which I think is something we could really work with. Basically a hardworking number 8. Geiger looks like he might be a better passer and more progressive than Aouchiche. McLean might be a good comparison, although I've not seen anything to suggest he can ping a thirty yard pass or have a strike at goal, so perhaps the deeper McLean of recent years rather than the one with us! I was a little underwhelmed in his opening games, but I think that was a fitness thing. I didn't think he was first to enough second balls, that Aouchiche was good at. That should come good once he's had a few games, I don't think it'll be missing from his game entirely.

I think this is a worse take than your race card shite.

I like to see this sort of thing. I've played kick abouts at the sports village where grown men are diving to win free kicks. The lack of sportsmanship in football is insidious. I don't believe it was always the case and we seem to not only be getting further and further away from a sport where sportsmanship was built in, but accepting and promoting it, and building it into our rules. The handball rule is a prime example, where sporting advantage (i.e. deliberate Vs not) has been removed from the equation. Accidental collisions are now red cards. Their red card, given after a slip etc. It's a real shame. It would be very simple to add the word "deliberately" into stopping a goalscoring opportunity, for example. Or "deliberately" endangering an opponent. Ironically, the sending off that everyone seems to be complaining about from last night was the one where the Motherwell player deliberately and cynically hauled the player to the ground to stop him getting away. He did it in an attempt to "take a booking" probably, with no idea whether his teammates would get back or not. It's certainly the most deserved of the sending offs, but we're all arguing over the technicality of whether the defenders would have caught the player, rather than the deliberate lack of sportsmanship in the challenge.