Hearts V St.Johnstone Saturday 29th September


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Observations from today.

Our defending from corners was very poor. Centre backs not commanding the box. Both goals FREE headers,.. Not even a  challenge. 

Ball retention.

Today was awful. We constantly gave the ball away all over the park. When we had the ball, Hearts were on us right away, usually 2 players at least, and  we ended up either having the ball  taken , resorting to a big punt to nobody in particular or passing to the keeper who then was forced under pressure to punt the ball. Hearts  won 90% of these balls and they just came back at us over and over again. The manager right said after the game that we lacked energy, even saying it was lazy.. Totally agree with that. Hearts buzzing, quick passing and moving, slick play. Saints , ponderous. 

Very few players played anywhere near as well as they can. Kennedy had by far his worst game, Kano is not the answer. All the defenders  were  struggling.. We were weak, failed to  put our foot in and make the strong tackles that we need to  make  if we are to  get anything from games like this..  Looked better with Watt and Swanson but yet again ( as with the cup game) it was too ****ing late. Not sure why MacMillan rather than Kane  made way for Watt ( who was stripped  a full 10 minutes before he was finally thrown on)..   All of that said, we almost could have snatched an undeserved  point due to Hearts  abject failure  to put more than 2 of their many many great chances away..

 

Overall I am  feeling very disappointed, not  because we lost but because of the manner of the loss..  There's always the next game though..  #COYS

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1 minute ago, The ghost of Jim Morton said:

Observations from today.

Our defending from corners was very poor. Centre backs not commanding the box. Both goals FREE headers,.. Not even a  challenge. 

Ball retention.

Today was awful. We constantly gave the ball away all over the park. When we had the ball, Hearts were on us right away, usually 2 players at least, and  we ended up either having the ball  taken , resorting to a big punt to nobody in particular or passing to the keeper who then was forced under pressure to punt the ball. Hearts  won 90% of these balls and they just came back at us over and over again. The manager right said after the game that we lacked energy, even saying it was lazy.. Totally agree with that. Hearts buzzing, quick passing and moving, slick play. Saints , ponderous. 

Very few players played anywhere near as well as they can. Kennedy had by far his worst game, Kano is not the answer. All the defenders  were  struggling.. We were weak, failed to  put our foot in and make the strong tackles that we need to  make  if we are to  get anything from games like this..  Looked better with Watt and Swanson but yet again ( as with the cup game) it was too ****ing late. Not sure why MacMillan rather than Kane  made way for Watt ( who was stripped  a full 10 minutes before he was finally thrown on)..   All of that said, we almost could have snatched an undeserved  point due to Hearts  abject failure  to put more than 2 of their many many great chances away..

 

Overall I am  feeling very disappointed, not  because we lost but because of the manner of the loss..  There's always the next game though..  #COYS

Thank you Gordon .go and have a beer.

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2 hours ago, The ghost of Jim Morton said:

Observations from today.

Our defending from corners was very poor. Centre backs not commanding the box. Both goals FREE headers,.. Not even a  challenge. 

Ball retention.

Today was awful. We constantly gave the ball away all over the park. When we had the ball, Hearts were on us right away, usually 2 players at least, and  we ended up either having the ball  taken , resorting to a big punt to nobody in particular or passing to the keeper who then was forced under pressure to punt the ball. Hearts  won 90% of these balls and they just came back at us over and over again. The manager right said after the game that we lacked energy, even saying it was lazy.. Totally agree with that. Hearts buzzing, quick passing and moving, slick play. Saints , ponderous. 

Very few players played anywhere near as well as they can. Kennedy had by far his worst game, Kano is not the answer. All the defenders  were  struggling.. We were weak, failed to  put our foot in and make the strong tackles that we need to  make  if we are to  get anything from games like this..  Looked better with Watt and Swanson but yet again ( as with the cup game) it was too ****ing late. Not sure why MacMillan rather than Kane  made way for Watt ( who was stripped  a full 10 minutes before he was finally thrown on)..   All of that said, we almost could have snatched an undeserved  point due to Hearts  abject failure  to put more than 2 of their many many great chances away..

 

Overall I am  feeling very disappointed, not  because we lost but because of the manner of the loss..  There's always the next game though..  #COYS

To lose to two corners kicks is the biggest disappointment , Hearts has plenty of shots but most of them outside the box

Swanny managed to do what nobody else did and that was get the ball, be direct and drive towards the opposition -  he managed to get just outside the Hearts Box and and although his shot was miles over bar, he gives us something we don’t get from Kennedy ( who I agree was poor today) 

 

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3 hours ago, The ghost of Jim Morton said:

new unacceptable behaviour rules seemingly.. pain in the ass.. I suggested that if the purchaser is a season ticket holder, the club could get the details they require from  just showing your ST and fill it in themselves..  Just more ****ing  hassle, like we need it..

i presume the O.F fans are made to fill this out too?

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7 hours ago, Cleveland-Saint said:

i only go to nfl, so probably right that baseball is cheaper.... bet you still dropped $20 parking, $8 /beer and $7 for a hotdog though

$5 to park a 30 second walk away at tampa and train right to the red bull arena, 

Paying to watch the Browns!!! Their record makes Dundee's look good:D

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5 hours ago, 541ntees said:

$5 to park a 30 second walk away at tampa and train right to the red bull arena, 

Paying to watch the Browns!!! Their record makes Dundee's look good:D

Browns are looking good this year. They’re a decent kicker away from being 3-0. 

Game totally changed last week with the introduction of Baker Mayfield. Interesting times 

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11 hours ago, PauloPerth said:

Agree, our centre midfield is dreadful. We gave hearts the ball back at every opportunity.

We are soft as shite. Barely committed a foul all day yet whenever we looked to get any chance of attacking hearts would happily concede a foul.

We had no leaders out there today. Hearts were efficient but we could easily have got something out the game if we’d been on it.

Fair play to the Saints fans there today who came away quite positive about our performance. I felt we did nothing until the game was gone. 

I thought we were pretty pish I’m afraid and hearts should have been out of sight by the time we started playing.

Exactly our two main areas of failure are centre midfield and two amigos in defence, Joe and tanser, crying out for a midgey Millar centre mid, Ando has his moments and no one else to cover left back at the moment , but watching this game and the last two against the the bigot brothers the mistakes this pair make are horrendous, I must be missing something when people think Joe is decent,  he is weak in the tackle and for a guy of his height get bullied by forwards and his distribution is awful, tanser for bulking up in the summer, well that's worked well and constantly caught out of position. Overall the last week has shown we have decent individual players but has he bought the right mix to make a decent team, I'm not so sure. Not that it makes any difference but saints teams in the last 5 to 10 years would have beaten that pretty average hertz team.

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51 minutes ago, crieffsaintandy said:

Not that it makes any difference but saints teams in the last 5 to 10 years would have beaten that pretty average hertz team.

You know I actually thought hearts looked good. Their link play up top was excellent. I'm not sure how much our standing off them made them look good but at times I thought they played better than Celtic.

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14 hours ago, The ghost of Jim Morton said:

new unacceptable behaviour rules seemingly.. pain in the ass.. I suggested that if the purchaser is a season ticket holder, the club could get the details they require from  just showing your ST and fill it in themselves..  Just more ****ing  hassle, like we need it..

Bought 2 tickets from ticket office and never had to fill in any form. Maybe just the dodgy looking characters getting asked to :laugh:

Edited by mainstand
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16 hours ago, The ghost of Jim Morton said:

new unacceptable behaviour rules seemingly.. pain in the ass.. I suggested that if the purchaser is a season ticket holder, the club could get the details they require from  just showing your ST and fill it in themselves..  Just more ****ing  hassle, like we need it..

How many of us sit in the seats whose number is printed on the ticket?

What if someone sitting in what was our allocated seat causes bother?

I’m getting close to telling them no, I refuse to be constantly “managed.”

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1 hour ago, andrew said:

How many of us sit in the seats whose number is printed on the ticket?

What if someone sitting in what was our allocated seat causes bother?

I’m getting close to telling them no, I refuse to be constantly “managed.”

And me mate, and me..

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On 9/29/2018 at 8:21 PM, The ghost of Jim Morton said:

new unacceptable behaviour rules seemingly.. pain in the ass.. I suggested that if the purchaser is a season ticket holder, the club could get the details they require from  just showing your ST and fill it in themselves..  Just more ****ing  hassle, like we need it..

They could even acknowledge that it's 2018 and just sell the things online. 

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A continuation of the performances against Celtic and Rangers for me. We created a few chances and could've scored more than one goal, but realistically we're lucky Hearts didn't score a few more which I felt their play probably deserved.

Kennedy was and has been poor for a while now and that has to be addressed with the introduction of Swanson, but my biggest concern is the centre of midfield. None of our available options are capable of tackling, taking the ball out from the back or passing at a consistently high level. Alston and Callachan both look capable of popping up with goals and have plenty of energy which addresses other problems from last season, but it's criminal that we don't have a central midfielder in the entire squad who is comfortable in possession, can take the ball in under pressure and recycle the ball. It's not like we're short of numbers either - Davidson, Craig, Alston, Wotherspoon, Callachan, Nydam, McCann and McClean would probably all make arguments that the engine room is their strongest position. I've left Scougall out because he's more comfortable in an advanced role and there's probably more chance of Jason Kerr playing there than him right now. Moving on to the strikers,  I thought Kane offered virtually nothing and should've been hooked before McMillan in favour of Watt, who made a bit of a difference and did well at our goal. Wright continues to impress and was everything Kennedy wasn't in terms of application, potential attacking menace and supporting Foster. They did their best to keep Mitchell and Djoum bay on the right - two players who are more than capable of punishing any lapses in defence. I thought Tanser coped reasonably well on the left considering he had virtually no support against Morrison and Smith, who I was glad to see exit the match. If Hearts had scored from open play, it probably would've stemmed from that side.

Saints have been maligned for years for having an old squad and a pragmatic manager but what I wouldn't give for some of the cuteness we used to have back in the team. Even one or two of the old guard - Maclean and Millar as examples - would make a huge difference in a team which clearly has much more energy and creativity as they chances we are creating shows, but much less ability to manage a match. They'd make the required fouls, take the required bookings and talk their team mates through matches - something that no one in that team on Saturday seems capable of doing. There's no way, for example, that we would've conceded 64 shots on goal and only conceded 21 fouls in the last 3 matches with the old boys in the team. 

I reckon this team will come good in time but still needs a proper midfield general to help us through matches. a 29 year old Chris Millar would be perfect. If we have to sacrifice Scougall (who seems most likely given he can't even make the match day squads any more) and Nydam then so be it.

 

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I didn't think we'd take anything from this, didn't think we'd have ''the fight'' in us to do it. We are pretty powderpuff in the middle and at the back and there's 2 things I'm not understanding.

The 1st is - why has Liam Gordon been relegated the bench? Him and Kerr are the future at the back and he looks stronger and better than Joe and Ando at the back. He needs games, sitting on the bench is no good for him, or us.

The 2nd is, the centre midfield being an obvious weak point, why have we stopped putting 3 in the middle with the 2 wingers on the outside? I think we played our best attacking football with Watt upfront and Wright and Kennedy bombing forward every chance they got and Alston charging forward through the middle. Every time I've seen us play with a midfield 4 we've been over run pretty easily.

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1 hour ago, saintj said:

I didn't think we'd take anything from this, didn't think we'd have ''the fight'' in us to do it. We are pretty powderpuff in the middle and at the back and there's 2 things I'm not understanding.

The 1st is - why has Liam Gordon been relegated the bench? Him and Kerr are the future at the back and he looks stronger and better than Joe and Ando at the back. He needs games, sitting on the bench is no good for him, or us.

The 2nd is, the centre midfield being an obvious weak point, why have we stopped putting 3 in the middle with the 2 wingers on the outside? I think we played our best attacking football with Watt upfront and Wright and Kennedy bombing forward every chance they got and Alston charging forward through the middle. Every time I've seen us play with a midfield 4 we've been over run pretty easily.

Liam Gordon has been injured. 

 

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