Sorry, I know Manc usually starts these but I get impatient 

Huge game really since a defeat leaves us nine points behind, and with Hearts' general level of consistency that might be third realistically over.

Stewart I imagine is out. Unless Goodwin is going to pull a rabbit out of the hat with a new signing, it means McCrorie at centre back and Kennedy or Richardson at RB. Shame since McCrorie at RB been working well.

Wonder if we'll see Myslovic. Duk and Hayes in particular looked like they picked up knocks at Hampden.

But I would try and start as close to the semi team as possible. With five subs I don't think you need to make too many changes from the starting line-up. 

Winnable game, Hearts aren't great shakes and St Mirren deserved more on Friday. But a draw wouldn't be the worst result, would keep them within catchable distance and we've still to play them twice.

 

Edited January 16, 20233 yr by Panda

Currently, I hate AFC with a passion

Thank fuck it's not worked for me tonight. Mental, just mental. Shoogly peg time? Seems like we're miles off.

Darvel ticket.

Free to good home 

If Jim asks, we've all gone to do something more rewarding with our evening.

Omg that was torture I don't think I can bear to watch anymore, surely can't be any dons fans left in the ground 

Defending is abysmal!! 

I was at Tynecastle almost a year ago and we have not improved one iota from that game 

Does Stewart have some qualities that you only notice when he isn’t there?!

7 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

Does Stewart have some qualities that you only notice when he isn’t there?!

Was wondering this. It’s also shite for Lewis. What a time to be alive 😭

9 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

Does Stewart have some qualities that you only notice when he isn’t there?!

The main attribute is that he's not Ross McRorie. He was like this playing in a back four last season too, just basic errors, and it completely upsets the balance. Stewart generally knows where to be in relation to an attacker. He is actually a defender, I suppose.

Hearts look like a team that work on their shape and movement going forward.

We do not.

1 minute ago, redordead said:

Hearts look like a team that work on their shape and movement going forward.

We do not.

FTFY

Really embarrassing. I hoped that the run of bad results we had since coming back from the international break was a blip and we would get back to the races and have an OK season. But where do we go from here? Confidence will be shot again and we don't seem to be able to defend. Is this a sackable result? We don't seem any better then last year under glass and we've spent a decent wedge of money.

Disgrace tonight. We were so far off the pace it was frightening. There is no way Coulson should be getting a deal. No idea how to defend. Lopes didn’t help him either. He cannot play the wide left role. Provides no protection to left back. Scales was awful tonight as was McCrorie. Not sure if one was effected by the other being shit or it was both. It was clear to anyone with half a brain we needed defenders in as a priority yet Nowin and the recruitment team brought in two midfielders. Idiocy. As poor as we were under Glass we were never as poor as we were tonight. I really fear Monday if he is left in charge. 

10 minutes ago, DantheDon said:

Really embarrassing. I hoped that the run of bad results we had since coming back from the international break was a blip and we would get back to the races and have an OK season. But where do we go from here? Confidence will be shot again and we don't seem to be able to defend. Is this a sackable result? We don't seem any better then last year under glass and we've spent a decent wedge of money.

The money doesn't come into it. No manager replaces an entire team successfully, regardless of money. Look at our bench versus hearts and it's abundantly clear that we don't have a squad (nor was it possible to have one). Goodwin needs to be judged on his tactics, substitutions etc. and he's failing, and that is extremely worrying. However, it is extremely difficult to legislate for some of the defending tonight too. Hearts scored four goals by just hitting it towards our defence and waiting for mistakes. 

7 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

The money doesn't come into it. No manager replaces an entire team successfully, regardless of money. Look at our bench versus hearts and it's abundantly clear that we don't have a squad (nor was it possible to have one). Goodwin needs to be judged on his tactics, substitutions etc. and he's failing, and that is extremely worrying. However, it is extremely difficult to legislate for some of the defending tonight too. Hearts scored four goals by just hitting it towards our defence and waiting for mistakes. 

I don't wholly disagree with anything your saying, but I honestly think we have bought in some real quality players in the attacking third. So I suppose what I'm thinking is this is ultimately that the team has improved but is being badly managed. We do lack depth in defence but it raises questions of why Jack Milne was allowed to go out on loan earlier this week, and for me it makes me think how stupid we were to let Considine go.

15 hours ago, Panda said:

Goodwin was being coy about it in the press conference, saying there's concerns over one or two, but Jonny Hayes was the player put up and he said he's fine fitness wise. So my guess would be Duk and Scales perhaps. 

Roos

Kennedy McCrorie Mackenzie Coulson

Ramadani

Barron Shinnie

Hayes

Miovski Watkins

 

That team is good enough to do the job. Let's not put Hearts up on a pedestal here, they're bang average. Just need a few battlers in there to fight fire with fire.

😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅

Odd game in that it was never a 5-0 game, and at times Hearts were actually really poor. A lot of Aberdeen attacks stemmed from Hearts inability to pass or win 50/50s. Incredible that they've ended up with a 5-0 win when on another night a well organised and clinical team would have beaten them.

However, that doesn't mean we were unlucky. We can't defend, have a manager who is as tactically inept a boss as I can remember (I thought Roy Aitken was the worst in that respect). The starting XI was good enough to win the game, they lost 5-0. It was not a one off, it's six defeats in eight.

2 minutes ago, HaarDon said:

😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅😅

If you're laughing at me saying Hearts are bang average, I stand by it. They are bang average.

See above post.

It scares me how much this is starting to mirror previous regimes with round pegs in square holes which is one of my biggest gripes with managers.  Our starting line up last night had a winger at right back when we signed a recognised right back in the summer.  Johnny Hayes, a left winger, playing on the right when we seemed to have about a million wingers a few months ago so just play him in his proper position.  Duk should be playing centrally.  McCrorie just chucked in another role because he is seemingly a utility man who never gets asked to play the same role two weeks in a row.  Besuijen we were told was some kind of unpolished diamond who would make us millions yet he starts on the bench again.  Coulson is meant to be a left back but is never in position hence the Hearts goals.

Clarkson and Scales aside, who are not our players, are any of the summer signings actually better than what we had last season?  I'm not sure. 🤔

................and what's the deal with Connor Barron?  Why is he warming the bench?

In conclusion, to me a 5-0 defeat by Hearts is a P45 job.

 

 

Edited January 19, 20233 yr by wokinginashearerwonderland

52 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

It scares me how much this is starting to mirror previous regimes with round pegs in square holes which is one of my biggest gripes with managers.  Our starting line up last night had a winger at right back when we signed a recognised right back in the summer.  Johnny Hayes, a left winger, playing on the right when we seemed to have about a million wingers a few months ago so just play him in his proper position.  Duk should be playing centrally.  McCrorie just chucked in another role because he is seemingly a utility man who never gets asked to play the same role two weeks in a row.  Besuijen we were told was some kind of unpolished diamond who would make us millions yet he starts on the bench again.  Coulson is meant to be a left back but is never in position hence the Hearts goals.

Clarkson and Scales aside, who are not our players, are any of the summer signings actually better than what we had last season?  I'm not sure. 🤔

................and what's the deal with Connor Barron?  Why is he warming the bench?

In conclusion, to me a 5-0 defeat by Hearts is a P45 job.

 

 

You're always going to get square pegs in round holes at a club our size, it's important to distinguish the enforced (Kennedy and McRorie) from the tactical (Duk and Hayes). The tactic of inverted wingers in the front three has proven not to work for us. The first thing that both Duk and Hayes did last night was go down the line. There was no benefit to either playing on their wrong foot. Weirdly, Coulson is more in need of the defensive support that Hayes offers than Kennedy, who holds his position. Hayes hasn't been an inverted winger in his entire career. That Goodwin, nor the player, know this is frustrating (McInnes tried it enough with zero success).

In terms of Barron, he plays in the role that Ramadani occupies, or alongside him where Shinnie now is. There is no position for him otherwise. Neither of those two are getting dropped anytime soon (I'm still unsure about Ramadani), so he has to wait. 

For all the chat about recruitment data, we've only really got a few players with the potential to be an improvement to show for it. I think a lot is being glossed over because we've finally got the desired foreigners in, which for some reason seems to excite the fans more. Duk and Miovski have potential. That said, we should be looking for good first team players in the first instance, with the hope that one or two will go on to make us money. One or two windows isn't enough to judge though, and it's important that we feed the data back into the model so that we avoid Stewart and Morris type signings in future (Richardson I'm going to give a pass, because he has actual attributes that could be used if he didn't have the confidence of someone who's been locked in a cupboard). We've got enough players to work with for next season at least.

3 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

We've got enough players to work with for next season at least.

In the championship?