weeyin

I've been seeing that rumour for a while. Certainly be a great opportunity for Las, but a bit weird for Robbo to have him has a new boss.

If you follow that approach you'll just end up with technically excellent, tactically astute football players. Don't want any of that nonsense near Scottish Football!

Whoever we bring in, the one guarantee is that there will be people on here posting they're not good enough after 45 mins of game time.

The Hibs gaffer was assistant to our ex-player managing the Belgian national team - the number one ranked team in the world for most of that period. Not been too impressive in the Easter Road hot-seat so far.

Completely agree! I remember an interview he gave early on about the adjustments he had to make after his early experiments. Basically giving up the short passing from our box and letting Kelly play it longer. I think he ended up being over reliant on Kelly's long ball in a number of games when we could be playing more through Slattery, Goss, Maguire or whoever.

The old, "kill the spontaneous goal celebration until after the VAR check by which time it's either too late or it's been disallowed" rule.

To be fair to GA, he started off his Motherwell career by trying to play out short from the back and quickly discovered we didn't have players capable of doing that. It was only after that he started going longer - arguably too long, but I'm not sure whether that's preference or realism.

Unfortunately, "benefit of the doubt" is given by the officials rather than VAR. VAR just gives them pictures to make poor decisions.

If he has an IQ higher than his shirt number, probably aye.

Overall, I'm more against VAR than for it. It will be the same pool of officials we've had over the past few years that are in control of the video, so the cynic in me expects an increase in the number of OF pen reviews while the rest of us don't see any change. The main reason for it was supposed to be to overturn "clear and obvious" errors. For me, that means if you can't tell in about 10 seconds that there was a mistake, then it wasn't clear and obvious. However, that rarely seems to be the case, and VAR reviews often stop the game for a minute or more. I also agree about the offside decisions. If you need 2 minutes to figure out if a striker's shoulder is 0.5cm ahead of the defender's big toe then the goal should stand. Partly because goals are good for the game and partly because video technology, by its nature, is inaccurate. You can never freeze it the exact nanosecond the ball leaves a player's foot, so it's not fair to try and apply that accuracy to the offside line. If it's used to correct the decision like Livi's non-penalty the other week, I have no issues with that. Likewise, if it's used to identify off the ball incidents or even review bad tackles that the ref has missed or where he's been unsighted that's OK by me. The rest, I don't really care about. I'm happy to be proved wrong, but I fear with the standard of officials we have in the SPFL the only thing VAR will bring Scottish football is more wrong decisions that interrupt the flow of the game.

That's probably what they actually do. The official line I've heard from the SPFL, however, is that they do try and predict top 6 before every season and how that complicates things. Right enough, it's usually when they are a week late with the post-split fixtures and looking for an excuse.

You could sell that as a slogan to our Marketing Team

They have to predict who will finish top 6 before the season starts to try and schedule the last 5 fixtures to balance home and away, plus take into account previous home and away balance. I think Hibs and Aberdeen really shafted them with that, which is why we end up at Tannadice again.

I agree Lamie has been our best defensive performer recently. I was one of his defenders (no pun intended) in his early days because we were playing him in all kinds of weird positions - including left mid at one point. He's obviously an effective central defender. Not outstanding, but solid enough. Part of that effectiveness is finding a partner, and we've struggled to field the same duo in consecutive games most weeks. A settled defensive unit is a key platform in any team's success and we're not there yet. Sol reminds me a bit of McManus. Has the talent, but prone to lapses in concentration a couple of times a game. Bevis is a bit like Hartley. Keep the passes short and simple, and he does fine. But you've got to love it when he's on the move up the wing and he seems like a top bloke.

Especially if Charlie Adam's salary is freed up next season.

One of the reasons players move is for more first team football. Lamie has been about 4th choice in his preferred position most of this season, so I assumed Dundee were offering him a better chance of regular starts. If the money was similar (or better) and the length of contract was similar (or better) then you can see how it would have made sense at the time. If we did re-sign him, I think he'd still be 3rd or 4th choice in GA's mind, so not sure anything has changed for him from that perspective.

He's fine when he's playing central defence and keeps his passes simple. When he plays up top (or even galloping up the wing from the right back position) he's pure entertainment.

That's harsh. He's been played out of position quite a few times this season, but he's developed into a solid central defender.

I think he must have been some kind of creative accounting tax write-off.

I played at left back too. I'd have pointed out that Goss and Lamie should both have won their tackles before letting Forrest play the through ball for the first goal.

I think as long as Hibs don't win the cup, I qualify for the Europa League Cup League Preliminary Group Stage Conference Qualifier Round.

The big man pushing up as an extra striker is pure entertainment.

The last few months of Robinson were "eye bleeding". I've posted many times about how, like most clubs our size, the only reason we watch is to be entertained. Our chances of winning anything are slim to none, so enjoyment is key. Football being football, however, you can't guarantee that at Fir Park (or at, for example, Old Trafford). That's part of the fun. Entertainment, for me, isn't just about seeing fast flowing attractive football every week - although that would be ideal. It's also about watching managers develop players, watching new players evolve, watching youngsters come through, watching players adapt etc. Then there is bringing in a new manager that has never managed in Scotland before. If you remember, early on he tried to play out from the back before discovering that Scottish players and Scottish football struggled with that. So had to change tactics. Then with Covid and major injury and fitness issues, we've struggled to field consistent starting line-ups. Again, for me, that is part of the interest of watching a team like ours. It's been a struggle in 2022. but somehow we've managed to get top 6 with just one win. You can argue with the quality of play today, but you can't complain about the character and commitment to get that equaliser. If you can combine that mentality with better players then there should be improvement. Now that GA is completing his first full season I'd expect him to apply his lessons learned to recruitment, training and tactics for next season. If he doesn't, then we need to have the conversation about replacing him. If he does, then it was well worth keeping him around. I assume, since we extended his contract, there are no plans to ditch him. As I said earlier in the thread, there were many people on here wanting Tommy Wright to take over last time around. If you want eye-bleeding football he's certainly your man, but he proved pretty quickly at Killie he would have been the wrong man. Likewise, if fans had had their way, Wee Tommy would have been sent packing in his first couple of season and we'd never have had that success. I remember people complaining about McCall's style of play when we were finishing 2nd and 3rd in the league. I pointed out then you should enjoy it and remember it because we tend to be a 7th or 8th best kinda team and that level of success wouldn't last. This has been a weird Covid season. Not as weird as last season, but it's still had an impact on training, on match days and on killing off the reserve/youth teams which has hampered development. It's certainly not been a classic, but if we finish above 6th, it's been OK. Especially given all the chat pre-season that there would only be one top six spot up for grabs after Aberdeen and Hibs took 4th and 5th. In fact, based on my last 50+ years of watching, it's probably slightly above average. But that doesn't mean I don't want it to improve on the run-in and next season. First things first, though - let's get 2 or 3 wins post-split and see where that takes us.

Monday: "It's all about the result" Tuesday: "It's all about the result" Wednesday: "It's all about the result" Thursday: "It's all about the result" Friday: "It's all about the result" Saturday Morning: "It's all about the result" Saturday Afternon: "We got the result" Saturday Evening: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Players who sign pre-contracts shouldn't play for their team for the rest of the season. Discuss (once you've cast your vote for Lamie)