Creativity is required.

[August Landmesser]

3 hours ago, Psychedelicropcircle said:

The oppositions first task today was to stop us being creative. A horrible team playing ugly but effective football ?

Wasn't that effective really, we beat them. With a goal scored and created by two of our midfielders.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Bauldrick said:

I agree that we lack creativity in midfield, we have done so for a long time, someone who can control the midfield, pick a telling forward pass and not treat the ball like a hot potato, usually such a player is someone in the autumn of their career perhaps Charlie Adam could have been the answer, surely somewhere in Europe such a player could possibly be available, oh for even another Stevie Fulton to come along. Craig says he is happy with the midfield options that we have, I have to disagree, Djoum and Clare are too similar in style, both being attack minded midfielders, Haring is an exciting ball winner, Lee has the occasional superb strike from distance but does not offer much else, so, my ideal midfield would be one attacking midfielder, one defensive ball winning midfielder, plus that elusive, talented, crafty midfielder.

 

I would agree with you before this season but I thought we had the midfield you're talking about at the start of the season with Lee, Haring and Naismith in those three roles. Naismith picked out a great pass today for the goal and has done that a few times this season. And in terms of controlling midfield, Haring has been immense the season. I think finding a wide player or getting more from Morrison or Mulraney is more important. I think we signed Martin hoping he would be the elusive. talented, crafty one. He was certainly elusive!

[Thomaso]

We will miss Naismith creativity against Dundee.

[Bauldrick]

Today I was really impressed with our wide player Morrison, well, up to a point, great speed and awareness, beat his man beautifully then aaarrrrggghhhh, the touch of an elephant when attempting to cross a ball, what are the doing during these training sessions, get him dashing up that touchline at high speed and crossing the ball at least 100 times every day until the penny drops, you are aiming the ball at head height for the incoming striker not aiming for the top row of the bleeding floodlights.

[sairyinthat]

16 minutes ago, Cruickshank for Scotland said:

We will miss Naismith creativity against Dundee.

Read a couple of pages now about our lack of creativity.Out of curiousity was it another team that zoomed to the top of the league until a crop of long term injuries happened or what?

[Pasquale for King]

4 hours ago, Tatlock said:

Haring is what we are missing. HIs ball winning and work rate allowed our other midfielders space and time to create. He is the protection for the team. We do still need a winger who doesn’t go to pieces whenever he has a chance to cross or shoot. It’s nearly ther, just a couple of weeks till he’s back and barring more injuries we will see the return of early season swagger?

He won’t be back until late February, we need to find the right blend in midfield until then. Djoum needs to be moved further forward, Shaughnessy might play there when Souttar returns.

[Pasquale for King]

30 minutes ago, Bauldrick said:

Today I was really impressed with our wide player Morrison, well, up to a point, great speed and awareness, beat his man beautifully then aaarrrrggghhhh, the touch of an elephant when attempting to cross a ball, what are the doing during these training sessions, get him dashing up that touchline at high speed and crossing the ball at least 100 times every day until the penny drops, you are aiming the ball at head height for the incoming striker not aiming for the top row of the bleeding floodlights.

Hard and low, Pep calls it half a goal.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Pasquale for King said:

Hard and low, Pep calls it half a goal.

 

Just whip them in like Andy Robertson. One of the best crossers of the ball around just now.

[Pasquale for King]

2 minutes ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

Just whip them in like Andy Robertson. One of the best crossers of the ball around just now.

Just going to turn 25 in March as well.

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, sairyinthat said:

Read a couple of pages now about our lack of creativity.Out of curiousity was it another team that zoomed to the top of the league until a crop of long term injuries happened or what?

 

Short memories ? We played some great stuff. McLean and Uche linking up front, Naismith running through from midfield, Haring and Lee linking defence and attack, Morrison on the wing... No reason at all we can't do that again with more options now in Clare, Keena and Vanacek

[Thomaso]

9 hours ago, sairyinthat said:

Read a couple of pages now about our lack of creativity.Out of curiousity was it another team that zoomed to the top of the league until a crop of long term injuries happened or what?

 

That was Hearts however not the point I made.

so you don’t think we will miss Naismith’s creativity against Dundee????

[BelgeJambo]

Always going to be a bit rusty after the break.  The 3 Livi centre half's managed Vanacek pretty well, throw Uche in there and I am sure they wouldn't have been so comfortable.  I hope we work on having support closer to Vanacek and the final cross balls.

[Harry Potter]

13 hours ago, jambopilms said:

Nobody has an comfortable, easy game against Livi. They are set out to stop teams playing and that's what they did. Again.

Correct, was never going to be an easy task yesterday but we won the game.

clown ref never helped, but hes useless tbh.

[Cut The Crap]

13 hours ago, DG_HMFC said:

I think we have decent creativity, it's the movement in forward areas that isn't great. 

 

We don't have wingers or strikers that look to run in behind, everything is far too static and easy tonpkay against at times.

 

We wingers, and have done now for quite some time. Any money we have should be spent on guys that are good at being a winger - being direct and whipping in a decent cross.

 

This is it.

 

There's very little movement off the ball by our players.

 

I'm not sure if that's coached into them for some reason or just down to lack of ability or awareness, but it makes for a very ponderous and disjointed style of play. 

 

 

[Nelly Terraces]

10 hours ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

This isn't true. Naismith for one is always looking for positive passes and Morrison was charging up the wing as much as possible. It was pretty clear early in the season how Levein wants us to play and I don't think it fits your description. We wouldn't sign target men if the plan is sideways passing. Levein wants it played forward with supporting runs from midfield. That said, he's pragmatic, so he also understands the whole philosophy of the other team not being able to score if they don't have the ball, so he wants us to keep possession too. 

 

We're still missing key players and it was our main striker's first game today. Can only assume that was behind the very few chances we created. 

I liked that bit about 30 minutes into yesterdays game where Morrison had the ball in the right wing position about 20 yards out & we managed to go through a series of pointless passes that ended with Doyle having the ball passed back to him. A Livingston players didn't touch the ball once. Utter snooze inducing stuff.

[SE16 3LN]

We do miss Haring and I think we would have had more opportunity to be creative with him in the team. Still, we need more and we need some width.

[Alan_R]

end product from midfield also needs improved. Morrison is a frustrating player. At times his play is so positive but needs to get a goal in him or something. Heading towards the Billy King bracket if he doesn't improve.

[Jambo83]

If we are missing creativity, then Djoum and Lee aren't as good as what many think...  Neither are hard hitting defensive players, so they should be creating attacks and spreading play about.

[Thomaso]

6 minutes ago, Jambo83 said:

If we are missing creativity, then Djoum and Lee aren't as good as what many think...  Neither are hard hitting defensive players, so they should be creating attacks and spreading play about.

 

I agree - however Djoume was asked to play a holding role in the absence of Haring.

[Jocam2325]

14 hours ago, DH1986 said:

We desperately need a winger who lifts his head and picks out a player with a cross instead of the hit and hope Morrison. 

 

SSShh. Don't state the obvious which is that he has no end product at all. 

[AGoodLaugh]

The number of times we go from a promising position to the ball being at the feet of a centre back or goalkeeper because our attacking players are reluctant to take a chance is frustrating. I wouldn't mind so much if we were tiring the opposition by forcing them to chase us but a lot of the time yesterday our next move was to punt the ball long to Vanacek and more often than not lose possession. I think we have decent quality in the midfield but there maybe needs to be a bit of a mentally shift to be higher tempo and more positive in our play. 

[Diego10]

14 hours ago, Bauld said:

Soon as we stopped shelling it forward we looked creative.

 

From the 40th to half time we carved them open a couple of times with decent passing to stretch the defenders.

 

I think there is creativity there but we had the style wrong.

Is it in a nutshell.  The twenty minutes either side of half time where we stopped shelling it at Vanecek were really good.  Passed much quicker, had runners.  Much like earlier in the season.

 

The tactics can stifle the players sometimes

[naeclue]

There is clearly room for improvement with Hearts, but the opponents do have some influence on what we can do. A team that puts in a real shift one the small pitch that we have  makes it hard for us. Add to that it’s the first game after a break and we weren’t firing on all cylinders before.

 

I’d like players to go forward more, rather than play safe, but sometimes we’ve got to work the opposition to get space to play.

 

Personally my bugbear is transition - when we win the ball, we’re slow to counter-attack. Drives me nuts that.

[A_A wehatethehibs]

I think the wide areas is more of a problem for us than central. Think we have a good central midfield for SPL level where it’s all about winning the battle. Folk talking about needing someone more creative, as though Hearts can just go out and buy Christian Erikson or Kevin De Bruyne. Creative midfield talent costs big big money. You try buying a top creative central player for £3k a week wages... that buys you Malaury Martin level players. 

 

What we need is an Andy Driver. Winger who can get past a full back and swing a good ball into the back post. Proper Wingers seem to have totally dried up, sad as they are always the most entertaining players. Can Morrison do it? Maybe, but the boy is not there yet. 

[NB GIN]

16 hours ago, savage said:

Cochrane is not the answer

He could be I would play him from now on he is a good wee player throw him in 

[NB GIN]

55 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

I think the wide areas is more of a problem for us than central. Think we have a good central midfield for SPL level where it’s all about winning the battle. Folk talking about needing someone more creative, as though Hearts can just go out and buy Christian Erikson or Kevin De Bruyne. Creative midfield talent costs big big money. You try buying a top creative central player for £3k a week wages... that buys you Malaury Martin level players. 

 

What we need is an Andy Driver. Winger who can get past a full back and swing a good ball into the back post. Proper Wingers seem to have totally dried up, sad as they are always the most entertaining players. Can Morrison do it? Maybe, but the boy is not there yet. 

Morrison will improve but don’t think he will ever be as good as a driver or McCann 

we need direct wingers 

[Thomaso]

56 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

I think the wide areas is more of a problem for us than central. Think we have a good central midfield for SPL level where it’s all about winning the battle. Folk talking about needing someone more creative, as though Hearts can just go out and buy Christian Erikson or Kevin De Bruyne. Creative midfield talent costs big big money. You try buying a top creative central player for £3k a week wages... that buys you Malaury Martin level players. 

 

What we need is an Andy Driver. Winger who can get past a full back and swing a good ball into the back post. Proper Wingers seem to have totally dried up, sad as they are always the most entertaining players. Can Morrison do it? Maybe, but the boy is not there yet. 

 

McDonald?

[Brauhauser2012]

15 hours ago, Mr Elwood P said:

 

Mulraney, Morrison, Clare and Mitchell are all fast, it is speed combined with end product that is required. Unfortunately like many such qualities in football it is expensive to acquire a player that has both of these qualities, especially for a club at our level.

This and effort. Naismith was shouting at them to speed things up but some of them were not fully committing to spending the energy required to pull Livingston out of formation. For the brief periods we did run at them we split them open. Another striker (Uche) would also have helped as Vanacek had 5 men marking him at times.

[sairyinthat]

3 hours ago, Cruickshank for Scotland said:

 

That was Hearts however not the point I made.

so you don’t think we will miss Naismith’s creativity against Dundee????

Well I'll be there on Wednesday so will let you know,better against Dundee than any above us though.Hazard of bookings, not unexpected obviously prefer he was playing.

[Thomaso]

Just now, sairyinthat said:

Well I'll be there on Wednesday so will let you know,better against Dundee than any above us though.Hazard of bookings, not unexpected obviously prefer he was playing.

 

I'll see you there.

[grumpyespana]

1 hour ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

I think the wide areas is more of a problem for us than central. Think we have a good central midfield for SPL level where it’s all about winning the battle. Folk talking about needing someone more creative, as though Hearts can just go out and buy Christian Erikson or Kevin De Bruyne. Creative midfield talent costs big big money. You try buying a top creative central player for £3k a week wages... that buys you Malaury Martin level players. 

 

What we need is an Andy Driver. Winger who can get past a full back and swing a good ball into the back post. Proper Wingers seem to have totally dried up, sad as they are always the most entertaining players. Can Morrison do it? Maybe, but the boy is not there yet. 

Can we not try Mitchell on the wing ?.

[red]

I like Morrison but a decent experienced winger in his place yesterday and we would have won 3 or 4-0

[Debut 4]

15 hours ago, Mr Elwood P said:

 

Mulraney, Morrison, Clare and Mitchell are all fast, it is speed combined with end product that is required. Unfortunately like many such qualities in football it is expensive to acquire a player that has both of these qualities, especially for a club at our level.

I know what you’re trying to say but I’m not sure I fully agree?

 

It comes down to identifying these players when scouting or the type we bring through at youth level.  

 

In recent times you’ve had Suso, Templeton, Driver and to an extent Nicholson , even though his end product lacked at times. 

 

But these players had enough pace allied with ability to hurt teams.   The whole pace thing gets brought up alot but I don’t want road runners in the team.

 

I like players who know what they’re doing. Milinkovic wasn’t lightning but wasn’t slow, he had a good brain though. Good players get themselves in good positions. 

 

 

[Mr Elwood P]

6 minutes ago, Debut 4 said:

I know what you’re trying to say but I’m not sure I fully agree?

 

It comes down to identifying these players when scouting or the type we bring through at youth level.  

 

In recent times you’ve had Suso, Templeton, Driver and to an extent Nicholson , even though his end product lacked at times. 

 

But these players had enough pace allied with ability to hurt teams.   The whole pace thing gets brought up alot but I don’t want road runners in the team.

 

I like players who know what they’re doing. Milinkovic wasn’t lightning but wasn’t slow, he had a good brain though. Good players get themselves in good positions. 

 

 

 

At 19 I wouldn't rule out Morrison having a more successful career than one of or even all three of Nicholson, Driver and Templeton. It could be argued that none of them have played at a higher level than Hearts. Mitchell and Mulraney have both been identified as players who could provide the qualities you describe but Mulraney is going to be a longe term project. Driver and Templeton benefited massively from having some very good players around them at different periods at Hearts and Nicholson benefited hugely from our Championship season.

[A_A wehatethehibs]

56 minutes ago, Cruickshank for Scotland said:

 

McDonald?

 

41 minutes ago, grumpyespana said:

Can we not try Mitchell on the wing ?.

 

McDonald seems to have behind Morrison in the pecking order this year. Difficult to know why, Morrison obviously shows a lot more in training. McDonald hasn’t even had a sniff. Has he even had 1 appearance? 

 

As for Mitchell it seems to have been tried and not really worked. He seems to dither a bit in the final 3rd. He is perfect ability to be that type of player but he seems to try to be too smart and ends up running into trouble. He has the pace and control to get past every right back in the SPL and put good balls into the box. Maybe with our big strikers now available we will see more of that tactic second half of the season. 

[Dallas Green]

33 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

 

 

McDonald seems to have behind Morrison in the pecking order this year. Difficult to know why, Morrison obviously shows a lot more in training. McDonald hasn’t even had a sniff. Has he even had 1 appearance? 

 

As for Mitchell it seems to have been tried and not really worked. He seems to dither a bit in the final 3rd. He is perfect ability to be that type of player but he seems to try to be too smart and ends up running into trouble. He has the pace and control to get past every right back in the SPL and put good balls into the box. Maybe with our big strikers now available we will see more of that tactic second half of the season. 

 

He's two years younger than Morrison and he has played in three league games and three cup games this season.

 

IMO he's actually one of the best young players we have and the one with the biggest potential.

 

I think CL doesn't want to throw him in too soon. This is one player we need to make sure we get it right with and develop him properly.

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Nelly Terraces said:

I liked that bit about 30 minutes into yesterdays game where Morrison had the ball in the right wing position about 20 yards out & we managed to go through a series of pointless passes that ended with Doyle having the ball passed back to him. A Livingston players didn't touch the ball once. Utter snooze inducing stuff.

 

I liked the great passing move for the goal.

[Naisysback]

2 hours ago, Dallas Green said:

 

He's two years younger than Morrison and he has played in three league games and three cup games this season.

 

IMO he's actually one of the best young players we have and the one with the biggest potential.

 

I think CL doesn't want to throw him in too soon. This is one player we need to make sure we get it right with and develop him properly.

I agree 100%. When u watch him in all the games he has played he doesn't just throw crosses into the box, he comes inside to allow the full back to overlap, he looks to play little 1-2 around the box and play passes through defences. Hibs have just take Gauld in because he can do something different and according to Souttar McDonald reminds him of Gauld at Dundee Utd.

 

I think with having  a big lump of a striker then McDonald doesn't fit that style of play, its a balls into box game. Cochrane is a bit like McDonald in that he wants to pass the ball not just lump it forward. Team is full of 6ft plus players so its a big powerful team but with players like Naisy, Lee, Smith we should be playing more football on the grass, otherwise whats the point of the nice pitch.

 

Maybe a wee loan deal for a few months to get some more games and see what happens from there.

[Walter Bishop]

Again, the major problem is lack of creativity. 

 

How many of Morrison, Mulraney, Lee, Keena, MacLean, Clare, would get into any of our rivals teams? None.

 

Why give Keena a run out but not McDonald? He looked a talented last season and seems to be creative, not suited to Levein`s style?

Edited January 23, 2019 by Walter Bishop