Saturday 20th October

15.00

Hearts V Aberdeen

 

If we have any ambitions this season we must get a result against them. We have the players to compete against any club in the Scottish Premiership. Our injury problems should be eased but McKenna still suspended. Do we play the team we played against St Mirren or will D.M.go with Wilson and McGinn from the start.

 

Hearts 1 Aberdeen2

 

 

Ps..... Game is live on RED TV International 

It's really no surprise we struggle to create much when DM persists in playing 2 defensive midfielders in front of the back 4. If we were going with a back 3 then I could live with it (just) but none of the other "big" teams do that and consequently score far, far more than we do.

 

Logan's marking at set pieces is also starting to cost us dearly. A new right back (as well as a decent striker) has to be our priority in January, whoever is the manager at that point ( it will be DM unless he walks beforehand).

surely a priority is a proper cm seems he has binned gleeson and forrester already, ferguson overhead kick aside is still developing and i feel mcinnes will fuck him up

We wer. shyte and deserved sweet fanny adams from the game.

 

McInnes is coming up for 6 years in charge of us and it still grips my shit that we lose so many of games like these, you would think he would have learned by now.

 

Just not good enough. Our poor recruitment over the past few seasons is really biting us on the arse big time at the moment. We have some good players, but my goodness in matches what count you can really seperate the wheat fom the chaff.

One of the worst 90 minutes I've ever had to endure.

 

And despite the significantly weakened opposition, a very predictable result.

 

McInnes is over and out. And he was never good enough from day one.

 

Cunt. Total hun cunt.

Great, had a feeling it wasn't positive when I opted to not look at my phone / computer for results and watch the full re run on both Alba and Red TV.  Neither worked. I'm glad now.

 

I notice a lot of folk bemoaning how we set up, what would you have done differently? I thought there were calls for both Cosgrove and Wilson to start?  Just curious as I won't be bothering with the game now.

 

Fair question, and one I'd like to try and answer, everybody thought we were 4-4-2 when they seen the 11, but McInnes isn't brave enough for that, I was absolutely certain that Wilson would be wide left and I was right, a bizarre move from McInnes when there are 2-3 natural wingers on the bench, but I was intrigued to see how it panned out, unfortunately it amounted to nothing.

 

Cosgrove was the correct striker to start with, but for anyone to point a finger at him today is sheer lunacy, he got absolutely zero service, every aimless ball we punted to him was nowhere near him, it's that simple, what is he supposed to do? Wilson was the exact same in the 2nd half until he was subbed, he couldn't hold the ball up nor did he get any service. Every single player in the first 45 was atrocious. Shinnie and Ball let the game bypass them, they were invisible, they never won anything in the middle of the park and their passing was amateur. Nobody wants to point a finger at Shinnie though  That's not the first game in where that has been the case.

 

Devlin was utterly shite as well, Considine was like the Considine of old, in that he can't be trusted. Logan was useless and Lowe tried, but nothing came off for him. Lewis Ferguson also played his worst 90 minutes for us to date.

 

2nd half was a bit better, because we started with more positive players in the sense that they turn and run at defenders ( McGinn & Wright ) and McGinn, for all that I feel that he's certainly not as good as he was, was positive, he tested their keeper early in the 2nd half, won the penalty, put a few crosses into the box ( That Cosgrove should have been on the pitch for ) Wright also had a few decent runs at them but his end product was very poor.

 

Our first half showing was very predictable of our manager, it backfired, and not for the first time. Once we tried to play in the 2nd half, we were the better team, although they missed another Penalty and Lewis saved well from Djoum adding another. We were more positive and had we approached the game like that from the off, we may well have been victorious, who knows, but at least we'd have commended the manager, like most of us did at Parkhead, when we were actually well in that game.

 

Lastly, and perhaps not surprising to some, but for him to bring on Stevie May, when we are chasing a goal, is fucking ludicrous. The majority have accepted that May has been a total flop, I would fancy Darren Mackie to score more than him in this team, and that's saying something. I obviously still hope he comes good, and perhaps played in a 2 up front he would? But until then, he should be nowhere near the team, not in a game like this and especially not when we're casing a goal. That's just piss poor management, desperate even.

 

I said at the start of last season we may need a new manager to freshen our squad up & get more from this group of players, and I have been consistent this season in saying so also, I don't think he should be sacked, but he should know when it's time to walk away and perhaps when we finish so poorly this season in the league, because we will, whether some want to admit it or not, Hibernian are stronger, Hearts are stronger, Rangers are stronger & I would argue that whilst not on paper, but certainly on the pitch, Kilmarnock appear stronger. Fuck sake even Livingston are 6 points ahead of us, the vast majority will turn on him, as there are still some that are perhaps slightly blinkered by the manager, maybe he does deserve another transfer window, I don't know 

 

What I will say though, is that if we do get horsed against them in the Semi next week, the knives will be out from all sections of the support.

 

 

Fair question, and one I'd like to try and answer, everybody thought we were 4-4-2 when they seen the 11, but McInnes isn't brave enough for that, I was absolutely certain that Wilson would be wide left and I was right, a bizarre move from McInnes when there are 2-3 natural wingers on the bench, but I was intrigued to see how it panned out, unfortunately it amounted to nothing.

 

Cosgrove was the correct striker to start with, but for anyone to point a finger at him today is sheer lunacy, he got absolutely zero service, every aimless ball we punted to him was nowhere near him, it's that simple, what is he supposed to do? Wilson was the exact same in the 2nd half until he was subbed, he couldn't hold the ball up nor did he get any service. Every single player in the first 45 was atrocious. Shinnie and Ball let the game bypass them, they were invisible, they never won anything in the middle of the park and their passing was amateur. Nobody wants to point a finger at Shinnie though  That's not the first game in where that has been the case.

 

Devlin was utterly shite as well, Considine was like the Considine of old, in that he can't be trusted. Logan was useless and Lowe tried, but nothing came off for him. Lewis Ferguson also played his worst 90 minutes for us to date.

 

2nd half was a bit better, because we started with more positive players in the sense that they turn and run at defenders ( McGinn & Wright ) and McGinn, for all that I feel that he's certainly not as good as he was, was positive, he tested their keeper early in the 2nd half, won the penalty, put a few crosses into the box ( That Cosgrove should have been on the pitch for ) Wright also had a few decent runs at them but his end product was very poor.

 

Our first half showing was very predictable of our manager, it backfired, and not for the first time. Once we tried to play in the 2nd half, we were the better team, although they missed another Penalty and Lewis saved well from Djoum adding another. We were more positive and had we approached the game like that from the off, we may well have been victorious, who knows, but at least we'd have commended the manager, like most of us did at Parkhead, when we were actually well in that game.

 

Lastly, and perhaps not surprising to some, but for him to bring on Stevie May, when we are chasing a goal, is fucking ludicrous. The majority have accepted that May has been a total flop, I would fancy Darren Mackie to score more than him in this team, and that's saying something. I obviously still hope he comes good, and perhaps played in a 2 up front he would? But until then, he should be nowhere near the team, not in a game like this and especially not when we're casing a goal. That's just piss poor management, desperate even.

 

I said at the start of last season we may need a new manager to freshen our squad up & get more from this group of players, and I have been consistent this season in saying so also, I don't think he should be sacked, but he should know when it's time to walk away and perhaps when we finish so poorly this season in the league, because we will, whether some want to admit it or not, Hibernian are stronger, Hearts are stronger, Rangers are stronger & I would argue that whilst not on paper, but certainly on the pitch, Kilmarnock appear stronger. Fuck sake even Livingston are 6 points ahead of us, the vast majority will turn on him, as there are still some that are perhaps slightly blinkered by the manager, maybe he does deserve another transfer window, I don't know 

 

What I will say though, is that if we do get horsed against them in the Semi next week, the knives will be out from all sections of the support.

 

Cosgrove was on the pitch today to win the long balls forward and failed to do so nearly every time. I have never seen a target man win so few headers. Even when he did win the ball almost invariably he gave it away. He was not only poor player today but he was one of the worst and it’s no coincidence that we got a lot better when he was hooked.

We got better because we played football in the 2nd half, we didn't even try in the 1st. We punted aimless balls to a lone striker with nobody to run on to any that he won, nobody looked comfortable in the first half and they all looked like they din't want the ball, the defenders and especially the midfield, were the main culprits, not Cosgrove.

Kevin Clancy penalised Lewis Ferguson for handball after he hit the deck while pressing Steven Naismith.

 

They both fell down together and the ball hit Ferguson on the arm and that's a penalty,, Dear oh dear.

We got better because we played football in the 2nd half, we didn't even try in the 1st. We punted aimless balls to a lone striker with nobody to run on to any that he won, nobody looked comfortable in the first half and they all looked like they din't want the ball, the defenders and especially the midfield, were the main culprits, not Cosgrove.

 

Agreed. Cosgrove was hung out to dry by the tactics. There was no midfield support within 20 yards of him when we resorted to lumping high balls up to him.

 

That we looked better in the second half is not because he was withdrawn alongside Ball. It was because we started playing football on the deck and actually stringing more than 2 passes together.

Painfully, just watched the highlights on red tv. One of DMs failing is his loyalty to under performing players and I fear Anderson suffers as a result, much like Shankland wasn’t given a real chance. Why bring May on? It’s clear to everyone he’s a shadow of his former self but an idiotic four year contract will see DM play him to justify the deal. Would love to see us try to develop a Wilson Anderson partnership, or even Anderson with Wright just behind him. The long ball shite rarely works for us and the odd good game from Cosgrove isn’t enough.

 

I don’t think we need two holding mids. Shinnie or Ball, preferably Shinnie who is much more mobile and, while not totally necessary, still contributes in an attacking sense. Again, stubborn DM tries to play a fashionable 4-2-3-1 when it’s not that fashionable any more, and in the second half when we punt Ball we actually have a formation that’s more suited to our players and strengths.

 

We ruined Rooney by dumping him out wide regularly, hope we don’t do the same with Wilson. He had some nice touches again yesterday but is not a wide player.

Hearts defender Jimmy Dunne refused to condemn the fan who hit him on the head with a microphone during the 2-1 victory over Aberdeen. The 21-year-old defender insisted that sort of thing shouldn’t happen, but played down the incident, saying he didn’t want to make a big deal about it.

 

Good on him apart from the swan dive like he was shot.

 

On saying that the Aberdeen fan who threw it was an idiot.

 

 

 

 

Just catching up with the highlights. Yet another nonsense decision against us for the first penalty.

 

Why did Logan get booked for conceding the second Hearts penalty but the Hearts boy that fouled McGinn didn't?

Watching the highlights it looks as if we did okay in the game and could have had a result but really we could have been out of the match at half time. Always looks better with only a few minutes of highlights rather than the full game.

Just catching up with the highlights. Yet another nonsense decision against us for the first penalty.

 

Why did Logan get booked for conceding the second Hearts penalty but the Hearts boy that fouled McGinn didn't?

 

Almost certain it was Godinho that fouled him, and he was on a Yellow already, ref shat it, naturally.

We had a pop at Celtic at the san giro last month.

 

 

No we didn't. No idea where that is coming from. We were shit then and we were shit on Saturday.

 

I've run out of patience with McInnes. The first half on Saturday was particularly bad. Playing with such fear and so worried about what they'll do. In the second half (once the damage was done) we finally started to play and showed that we have it in us to hurt them but yet we didn't try until we were two down and it was too late. Not fucking good enough and I fear it'll be exactly the same on Sunday.

 

The semi is now a massive game for McInnes if it wasn't already so.

 

The one positive from Saturday was the performance of Niall McGinn. He looked interested and most of our good play went through him.