RicoS321

Hibs through. Looked decent.

Hoilett, Bowie and Mulligan looking decent for Hibs. The latter two should have been on our radar.

Hibsing taken to new levels

Five years gives him plenty of time to go through the journey from shite, to pity, to works hard, to we always knew he'd be good, to injured before leaving for a pittance with six months left on his deal.

Based on the price of children's football strips, I'm guessing that the brand is Adidas?

Pittodrie is the best ground in the world, and anybody who says otherwise can go and fuck themselves. Is what Cormack should say next time he's interviewed on sportsound.

It's an interesting subject. In terms of a player's character, that is of little use if the player isn't up to it anyway. A good example would be Nilsen at the weekend. A guy who clearly has desire and nastiness, who after he was done at around 60 minutes, resorted to taking it out on the opposition and was lucky not to be red carded. At 2-0 down at Fir park, he's just as likely to get sent off as drag us back into the game. Will data about athleticism, shots etc trump character? Maybe in some cases. Yengi maybe has decent stats (I don't know), but he's clearly a player devoid of confidence who looks like he might struggle to turn that around. Confidence doesn't necessarily transport well either - the big fish in a small pond effect. I guess scouting is just a difficult job, whether you're watching or at a PC. McInnes watched Miles fucking Storey, Calvin Zola and Greg Tansey. You have to be able to translate those one or two glimpses of a player into how he'll fit into your team in your league. I guess, used properly, what data and videos should allow you to do is get a picture of a player over a whole season or more, and it should allow you quantity (more players scouted). Success is so difficult to measure either way, though. We should be aiming at a 60% return in the transfer market. I don't think there's much evidence to suggest that data - in our case - has either guaranteed that, or improved on it. It may have returned us larger fees for players, but probably not, I think the overall market was increasing in terms of fees paid anyway. The biggest factor for me, should be the independence of the scouting department from the management team, and maybe data helps with that. We seem to be ceding control back to the manager increasingly. I'd love to hear how the club actually measures its success. It's basically impossible, because you can measure the players you signed, but I suspect nobody is measuring the players that we missed. Anyway, I think your overall point is one of feeling if I'm not mistaken. It feels shite. Similar to the foreign players thing I guess. And the boring players and their boring interviews. And identifying as a selling club. It feels a little soulless. Football has transitioned to the domain of the professional managerial class. Total control from the office. A world of Tony fucking Blooms. For all his faults, at least Cormack is a fitba fan. I let myself get bought into it too, of course, it's difficult to resist. It's a mirror of the world. AI scouts are on their way. Owned by the big clubs and rented out to their franchisees.

Or he could bang in three goals in his next two games, but also have sex with Alex Neil's wife. There are several routes to him being made available.

I'm assuming the suggestions labelled him as "former Rangers star"?

I guess there's a couple there that you've assigned to roles that they may not be best for. Molloy should be where Milne is, meaning we have three right centre backs. But aye, left back seems about right, assuming the other two come in this week. We're short of a box to box midfielder. Mainly because Palaversa doesn't seem up to it, which is very strange as he has all the attributes for the role. He just can't last 60 minutes (apart from the cup final, weirdly).

"Heart of Midlothian are considering recalling 20-year-old Adam Forrester from his loan to St Johnstone after Christian Borchgrevink was ruled out for a number of weeks with a thigh injury, leaving the Premiership club short at right-back. (Edinburgh Evening News)" Looks like the link up is working well!

Hayes? Jesus. He never shirked a challenge. That was his only tackle of the game, it was never a foul, but he never went up for a header despite being over six feet. He's a big lad who could use it better than he's shown in his short time. Would make a big difference to his game if he can develop that, especially in this league. His positioning defensively was poor too, but that will come with training, and he won't play against better opponents often. There's some promise there, but it'll need work. He could be like Hedges, who thrived when he learned that he had the strength and athleticism required. Very similar players. I think he'll be a good signing. Forgot to mention that Polvara was once again better than those that went off. He has to be starting soon. I noticed today that his touch wasn't as good as normal, almost like he was trying too hard. The sub appearances are doing him no good, and will start to impact negatively. His game time doesn't seem to be being well managed, perhaps there's off field issues we're not party to.

Oh well, wasn't the worst. Very similar to last season's run, with some nice football without doing anything of note. Aouchiche probably the best of the new lads, although unfortunately looked better when he dropped deeper! For the most part we were well organised, and Milne did well on the left (thank fuck Thelin listens to me). Dorrington was poor, Jensen decent. Keskinen worked hard, but with zero threat. Milanovic drifted out of it and showed little strength to match his size. Yengi looked frightened and it's probably the earliest I've ever moved into pity mode for a player. I'd say we're worse off than last season, and need a box to box midfielder and a striker.

That was my first thought. My second thought was that he took Devlin on at right back last week and moved Jensen left. Hope it's the former. Four right footed defenders is an abomination. I think I'd be requesting a move if I was Molloy.

No cup final motm. Dorrington to left side? Could be disastrous. Would play Milne there instead. Edit: I'm assuming a 4-2-3-1 with Shinnie and Nielsen in midfield. Hope to christ it isn't Jensen at left back.

Aye, so it's whether you "waste" a cooperation loan on a team in order to get one player some minutes. Hearts maybe have one young player that would get into the Saints team, and they might feel obliged to send them another two, for the sake of the cooperation, who might just gather dust on the bench. All three might have got a game for, say, Airdrie. In terms of us, I don't think we have three youngsters that would get into a championship side, so perhaps it's worthless. Marshall at Arbroath, alongside Lobban would work, then you'd have one other perhaps just being sent to make up the numbers. I think Lobban would get in to a decent County side though, so you'd likely be underselling him (and I'm not sure he'll be going on loan). To be honest, the whole thing is maybe just designed to increase the gap between top and second leagues. If Saints take three young Hearts players, for example, that doesn't say much about the viability of their squad.

Aye, thought we'd have sorted one with Arbroath or Raith (Robson). The problem for hearts with getting Saints, is that they'll still have some decent players and have the parachute payment from the premier. A young loanee from Hearts probably isn't going to get a huge number of minutes in their first team, especially when they'll be aiming to win the league.

Seems ridiculous. It makes sense that season ticket holders get priority, but only up until a specific point, a bit like reserving your seat for a cup match. Was there any inclination that this might happen when you first booked your spot? To be honest, it sounds like an error from the club, perhaps because it's the first game, because otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever. They should have been on the phone to the various corporate customers, explaining the error, and asking if they would be willing to give up one of their spots. I'm sure it could have been sorted.

Reckon this lad will be decent. From his YouTube, he looks like he can actually play fitba.

He mentions Dingwall in the paragraph prior, it reads as if Inverness doesn't exist - it's worded incorrectly. To be honest, anyone reading an article about Ross County probably knows what he means, but it would leave the layperson unaware that Inverness was a city. There are no laypersons, fortunately.

We're fucking bottom of the league. Thelin must go before we're cut adrift.

No movement on this thread since Tuesday, unsurprisingly. Don't think I'm ready for the start of the season yet, despite being a game in. A bit like the Dons it seems. Zero expectations for this one. Last time we set up with a 4-2-3-1 against them at Pittodrie it went horrendously. I expect the same again if we try it again. Will hopefully be more in the mood for it by tomorrow. 3-0 the Dons.

Yep, it's typical of today's journalism. It should read: "The nearest proper cities - Aberdeen...."

Stevie's da

He's a level below what we need, and hearts. When he can play every week and be the main man, he's good. Not sure he'll manage that at Dundee, but maybe.