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Bongo 1874

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So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874.

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Niemi’s gloves
44 minutes ago, Bongo 1874 said:

So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874.


“This is your warning Ann”. Are you planning to take out a contract on her?

 

I realise that you’re still hurting from that 6-0 win yesterday and I guess the Dundee and Raith results didn’t help your state of mind but try to keep a grip.

 

i

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Our U18s have had two great wins in recent days and that's encouraging.  Hopefully 2 or 3 if them will make the grade next season.

 

I honestly believe that every aspect of the club is recovering from levein and I hate saying that.

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50 minutes ago, Bongo 1874 said:

So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874.

Hard to disagree with any of that, their seems to be a very big problem at the club in giving our youth a chance, we should have been introducing these players this season, obviously not all of them at once but 1 or 2 in the starting 11 at a time seriously would not have hurt our permonces this season imo, its one of the many issues that the club has and needs to be addressed asap.

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It has already been explained that the club felt it was better to loan out the young players so that they could perhaps get around 15 games rather than not going on loan and maybe getting 1 or 2 games.

 

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23 minutes ago, Niemi’s gloves said:


“This is your warning Ann”. Are you planning to take out a contract on her?

 

I realise that you’re still hurting from that 6-0 win yesterday and I guess the Dundee and Raith results didn’t help your state of mind but try to keep a grip.

 

i

You talk some kack considering i started the match day thread and said we would win? So please tell me why on earth would I be hurting, absolute freak of a comment to make with no substance to back it up, because i feel the club needs change, it appears you need to get a grip🙄 because if you think it's acceptable for any manager at Hearts to get beat by Brora in the cup and what Robbie has served up, then I suggest you go to Easter road pal as that's what having a losers mentality will get you. 

 

Back off 👍

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4 hours ago, Bongo 1874 said:

So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874.


Can we please put the Doig bullshit to bed? 
 

Doig left because he was rightly behind Hickey, he didn’t have the character to put his head down and challenge so left and went to hibs. We’re not 1980’s Dundee united holding young players prisoner on 6 year contracts ffs

 

He’s doing well for himself at them but isn’t anywhere near the level hibs make him out to be and there is no telling how good or bad he’d have been for us.

 

Theres a thousand things to have a go at the club about but picking Hickey over Doig most definitely isn’t one of them and nobody would be showing the slightest bit of attention to Doig had Kingsley maintained his early season form. 

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4 hours ago, Bongo 1874 said:

So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874.

If Robbie had used youth this season, he'd have put us in the shite. Experienced players were needed to get us out of this league. Job done. End of. 

Now, tell us more about your hero DS, and how he fecked us right over. 

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SpruceBringsteen

Couldn't give two shits about Doig. Wasn't good enough at the time, left. Boo hoo. Tell me more about how Harry Cochrane has went from scoring against Celtic and bossing Hibs to being a part time player though, because *that* interests me.

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The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Hmmmm, now, either the waitress is off sick or my taste buds have stopped working because I aint tasting shit.

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Mars plastic
1 hour ago, ri Alban said:

If Robbie had used youth this season, he'd have put us in the shite. Experienced players were needed to get us out of this league. Job done. End of. 

Now, tell us more about your hero DS, and how he fecked us right over. 

Think you’ll find we fecked him over. Boy gave up all his wages during lockdown only to be told by his mate we had appointed Chewbacca. 

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2 hours ago, Ribble said:


Can we please put the Doig bullshit to bed? 
 

Doig left because he was rightly behind Hickey, he didn’t have the character to put his head down and challenge so left and went to hibs. We’re not 1980’s Dundee united holding young players prisoner on 6 year contracts ffs

 

He’s doing well for himself at them but isn’t anywhere near the level hibs make him out to be and there is no telling how good or bad he’d have been for us.

 

Theres a thousand things to have a go at the club about but picking Hickey over Doig most definitely isn’t one of them and nobody would be showing the slightest bit of attention to Doig had Kingsley maintained his early season form. 

He is doing very well at hibs and there is plenty of interest from top clubs we could easily have played doig alongside hickey

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KyleLafferty

Everytime I’ve seen doig play against the old firm he’s been hooked at half time 😂. We had Hickey, a better footballer. Shit happens.

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43 minutes ago, Mars plastic said:

Think you’ll find we fecked him over. Boy gave up all his wages during lockdown only to be told by his mate we had appointed Chewbacca. 

I don't believe him. He didn't give a shit whether we stayed up or not. And disappeared in a flash. 

 

But hey, maybe Robbie should come out with wee quips about Tynecastle and the fans will lap it up and forget how shite we've been. 

 

 

Anyway, thank feck this season is done. Whatever will be will be regards to managers, Chairpersons and players. 

👍

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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FERRY HEARTS

It was essential for club and fans to get out the division! If we had tried it playing the youngsters and failed we’d have been in deeper shite !

New faces have been brought in some look descent others not so !

Iv been sitting on fence with Robbie as   Entertainment value crap and two shocking cup results has made it a sore watch BUT job is done now so let the young guns get their chance to show last 3 games and pre -season 

Let’s get back up there and into these Rat clubs and SFA.  HHGH🇱🇻

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Bad Religion

Rob does not have the ability to coach, motivate or improve young players therefore the academy will essentially remain redundant while he remains in charge. 
 

Looking forward to a host of ageing journeymen coming in over the summer. 

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A_A wehatethehibs

Looked into it this week and the youth narrative is a wee bit of a busted hand tbh. Seems to be a bit of a podcast meme that doesn’t properly add up in reality. 
 

End of the day it has always been the case that from 10-15 youths that gets whittled down to 2 or 3 making it to the first team squads. OP appears to follow the academy so you should know that. Go back however far you want. The one time we were forced to play an entire youth team under Locke in 13-14 with Dylan McGowans and Kevin mchatties etc Hearts literally could not compete, Locke went 20 odd games without a win mid season, we got relegated, and would have been in a relegation battle and still bottom even without the points deduction. In the end, from that crop, only Walker, Paterson and Nicholson made it into an actual Hearts team that was up to Hearts standards and finished 3rd in the league.
 

These players today who are out at Montrose or Cove Rangers need to really skyrocket to go from that level up to Hearts first team, you can look back all through history and you’ll see that most of the time, they don’t. But this season in particular the kids are at an even bigger disadvantage as they are all way way off the game time levels they need. Covid has been a real spanner in the works. How can folk slate the club when the normal progression from U20s to reserves to first team hasn’t even been operational for a year? These kids haven’t even played reserve games till now? They need to get those 10-15 games which they’ll hopefully get now. So we’ll see pre season, but the only names on OPs list there who I’m optimistic about are Logan and Henderson. The rest, I am calling it now, none of them will be playing any games in the Hearts Premiership first team next season. Maybe either Cochrane or Smith, if Irving leaves. Even if we changed the manager it’d be the same. The pressure to win and get above Hibs next season and get to the latter stages of cups, is absolutely immense. And we also actually have a bit of a transfer war chest too, with the large amount of dross that’s getting slashed off the wage bill.  
 

From the last crop it was whittled down to Brandon, Irving, Henderson. A few like Leonard, Morrison, Doig and others chose to leave in search of football or a different path into pro level. Others like Moore weren’t good enough and were let go. 1 was sold for 7 figures and that bankrolls the whole academy for a few more seasons. Yes we’ve not given very many debuts which is disappointing at surface level, but these things do go in cycles as OP will know from his stellar knowledge of youth football. You’ll have a season where there’s a lot of debuts then the next few years it gets whittled down as you sort wheat from the chaff. Next crop will be similar. Great to see the U18s are back playing, I’m sure a number of them will have great careers to look forward to. Maybe 1 of them could even be on to bigger things and english Premier etc. But the vast 90% majority won’t. If there’s any more than 3-4 youth players age 20 or under in a matchday squad of 18 players, I would say we’re doing pretty well. 20% matchday squad representation would be 3-4 academy players under the age of say 23. I think that’s a very decent aim and if you look at the facts we’ve actually been pretty close to that this season, a pity McGill hasn’t got more games but how good is he really? Is he a better player than Haring Mceneff Irving and Halliday? 

 

Maybe you would advocate that 20% squad levels to be say 30%. That would be 6 academy U23s out of the matchday 18 players. I actually agree with that, but would say maybe it would just be an age thing rather than just academy. We need to be signing more 20-21 year old players as well. Thats something we’ve not done. But the main thing, our overall squad age has been too high. I think that is achievable and what I’d be wanting as well  But that would have to be a long term thing to manage. And it would be very ambitious to get consistently to Europe while doing it. Because the fact is, not every kid is particularly good. A lot of them just aren’t. We can sign better quality players than them. Mceneff vs Irving, case in point. Mceneff is pushing for full international caps for his country. Irving will likely never get a cap. So what, we have to just not sign anyone and play Irving? That’s where it gets difficult. 

 

If Cochrane and Smith were not attached to hearts, they were just 20 year old Cove/ Montrose players. Would you be advocating for Hearts to go and buy them for next season from these clubs, for Hearts first team? Talking shite if you say yes tbh 

 

Next season i hope to see 2 or 3 more of them into the squad as the likes of White Berra and others move on. But I expect signings as well. A shame none of these kids are a top Center half as we could really use an 18 year old version of Berra to come through now.  That would be very handy. Next season there will hopefully be a full pre season, youth season and reserves season underway and we will be in a position to give a couple of debuts, if a few of the u18 lads look ready. 

 

Neilson is a long way away from putting that cup exit right. He’s at the bottom of Mount Everest in fact. But we got the promotion job done and avoided the disaster of failing to get up first time of asking as happened with other “biggest clubs in the division” of previous years. So it’s basically time to move on. Maybe he’s at base camp of Mount Everest now. A mammoth task ahead for him to recover, and that’s without of forcing him to have to play an absurd number of 10-15 kids next season. That won’t be happening and it doesn’t matter who the manager is. That’ll never happen. 
 

And if you want to discuss what’s happened to Irving as well, that is pretty obvious to me. Peter Haring has got back to fitness, he is now only 70-80% back to his best and he is better than Irving. Mceneff has come in to the club and he is better than Irving in terms of his pedigree, experience, pace, athleticism. Took some games to get up to speed but showed what he’s about now. Fact is Irving should be signing on, and looking to be Peter Harings shadow and start to copy all these wee tricks Haring plays, traps he sets and the way he skids the ball about. Irving can be that good if he has the patience to be a sponge, he’s only 20 so next season is ideal for him to turn 21, then on to 22 you’d think it’s perfect progression for him. But he isn’t going to be a certain starter or on big money. That’s not “ruining” him that’s just having better players than him and setting high standards for him to reach which at this time, Irving, looking back to the last 2 years under 3 managers, he just hasn’t got there yet. Nowhere near. And those standards I expect to be even higher next season as my expectation is for a Djoum type athletic power house midfielder to come into the engine room as well.

 

As for Doig well to be honest, I’m not going to use him as a stick to beat Neilson and Savage with. Neither of them was at Hearts when he was let go. We have already binned the man who was responsible. Folk need to understand that Craig Levein is gone from Hearts. The first step in recovery from Levein, was to get back promoted. That’s only the starting line. So folk need to start to move on from going over every single cock up the man made, there are literally hundreds. And though Doig was let go, we did still get 7 figures for Hickey so it’s not all bad. Give Savage and Neilson their first chance in the Premiership, that’s what we will do now. And if you don’t like that cancel your dd and stay away till budge and her appointees savage and Neilson are all gone. 

 

So the short version of the above. It’s right to have high hopes for the academy. But the first team bar is high and needs to go way way up next season. 

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The Treasurer
2 hours ago, i8hibsh said:

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Hmmmm, now, either the waitress is off sick or my taste buds have stopped working because I aint tasting shit.

You still manage to talk plenty of it though

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33 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

Looked into it this week and the youth narrative is a wee bit of a busted hand tbh. Seems to be a bit of a podcast meme that doesn’t properly add up in reality. 
 

End of the day it has always been the case that from 10-15 youths that gets whittled down to 2 or 3 making it to the first team squads. OP appears to follow the academy so you should know that. Go back however far you want. The one time we were forced to play an entire youth team under Locke in 13-14 with Dylan McGowans and Kevin mchatties etc Hearts literally could not compete, Locke went 20 odd games without a win mid season, we got relegated, and would have been in a relegation battle and still bottom even without the points deduction. In the end, from that crop, only Walker, Paterson and Nicholson made it into an actual Hearts team that was up to Hearts standards and finished 3rd in the league.
 

These players today who are out at Montrose or Cove Rangers need to really skyrocket to go from that level up to Hearts first team, you can look back all through history and you’ll see that most of the time, they don’t. But this season in particular the kids are at an even bigger disadvantage as they are all way way off the game time levels they need. Covid has been a real spanner in the works. How can folk slate the club when the normal progression from U20s to reserves to first team hasn’t even been operational for a year? These kids haven’t even played reserve games till now? They need to get those 10-15 games which they’ll hopefully get now. So we’ll see pre season, but the only names on OPs list there who I’m optimistic about are Logan and Henderson. The rest, I am calling it now, none of them will be playing any games in the Hearts Premiership first team next season. Maybe either Cochrane or Smith, if Irving leaves. Even if we changed the manager it’d be the same. The pressure to win and get above Hibs next season and get to the latter stages of cups, is absolutely immense. And we also actually have a bit of a transfer war chest too, with the large amount of dross that’s getting slashed off the wage bill.  
 

From the last crop it was whittled down to Brandon, Irving, Henderson. A few like Leonard, Morrison, Doig and others chose to leave in search of football or a different path into pro level. Others like Moore weren’t good enough and were let go. 1 was sold for 7 figures and that bankrolls the whole academy for a few more seasons. Yes we’ve not given very many debuts which is disappointing at surface level, but these things do go in cycles as OP will know from his stellar knowledge of youth football. You’ll have a season where there’s a lot of debuts then the next few years it gets whittled down as you sort wheat from the chaff. Next crop will be similar. Great to see the U18s are back playing, I’m sure a number of them will have great careers to look forward to. Maybe 1 of them could even be on to bigger things and english Premier etc. But the vast 90% majority won’t. If there’s any more than 3-4 youth players age 20 or under in a matchday squad of 18 players, I would say we’re doing pretty well. 20% matchday squad representation would be 3-4 academy players under the age of say 23. I think that’s a very decent aim and if you look at the facts we’ve actually been pretty close to that this season, a pity McGill hasn’t got more games but how good is he really? Is he a better player than Haring Mceneff Irving and Halliday? 

 

Maybe you would advocate that 20% squad levels to be say 30%. That would be 6 academy U23s out of the matchday 18 players. I actually agree with that, but would say maybe it would just be an age thing rather than just academy. We need to be signing more 20-21 year old players as well. Thats something we’ve not done. But the main thing, our overall squad age has been too high. I think that is achievable and what I’d be wanting as well  But that would have to be a long term thing to manage. And it would be very ambitious to get consistently to Europe while doing it. Because the fact is, not every kid is particularly good. A lot of them just aren’t. We can sign better quality players than them. Mceneff vs Irving, case in point. Mceneff is pushing for full international caps for his country. Irving will likely never get a cap. So what, we have to just not sign anyone and play Irving? That’s where it gets difficult. 

 

If Cochrane and Smith were not attached to hearts, they were just 20 year old Cove/ Montrose players. Would you be advocating for Hearts to go and buy them for next season from these clubs, for Hearts first team? Talking shite if you say yes tbh 

 

Next season i hope to see 2 or 3 more of them into the squad as the likes of White Berra and others move on. But I expect signings as well. A shame none of these kids are a top Center half as we could really use an 18 year old version of Berra to come through now.  That would be very handy. Next season there will hopefully be a full pre season, youth season and reserves season underway and we will be in a position to give a couple of debuts, if a few of the u18 lads look ready. 

 

Neilson is a long way away from putting that cup exit right. He’s at the bottom of Mount Everest in fact. But we got the promotion job done and avoided the disaster of failing to get up first time of asking as happened with other “biggest clubs in the division” of previous years. So it’s basically time to move on. Maybe he’s at base camp of Mount Everest now. A mammoth task ahead for him to recover, and that’s without of forcing him to have to play an absurd number of 10-15 kids next season. That won’t be happening and it doesn’t matter who the manager is. That’ll never happen. 
 

And if you want to discuss what’s happened to Irving as well, that is pretty obvious to me. Peter Haring has got back to fitness, he is now only 70-80% back to his best and he is better than Irving. Mceneff has come in to the club and he is better than Irving in terms of his pedigree, experience, pace, athleticism. Took some games to get up to speed but showed what he’s about now. Fact is Irving should be signing on, and looking to be Peter Harings shadow and start to copy all these wee tricks Haring plays, traps he sets and the way he skids the ball about. Irving can be that good if he has the patience to be a sponge, he’s only 20 so next season is ideal for him to turn 21, then on to 22 you’d think it’s perfect progression for him. But he isn’t going to be a certain starter or on big money. That’s not “ruining” him that’s just having better players than him and setting high standards for him to reach which at this time, Irving, looking back to the last 2 years under 3 managers, he just hasn’t got there yet. Nowhere near. And those standards I expect to be even higher next season as my expectation is for a Djoum type athletic power house midfielder to come into the engine room as well.

 

As for Doig well to be honest, I’m not going to use him as a stick to beat Neilson and Savage with. Neither of them was at Hearts when he was let go. We have already binned the man who was responsible. Folk need to understand that Craig Levein is gone from Hearts. The first step in recovery from Levein, was to get back promoted. That’s only the starting line. So folk need to start to move on from going over every single cock up the man made, there are literally hundreds. And though Doig was let go, we did still get 7 figures for Hickey so it’s not all bad. Give Savage and Neilson their first chance in the Premiership, that’s what we will do now. And if you don’t like that cancel your dd and stay away till budge and her appointees savage and Neilson are all gone. 

 

So the short version of the above. It’s right to have high hopes for the academy. But the first team bar is high and needs to go way way up next season. 

Excellent post. Sums up the trials and tribulations of the academy and young players over the last 18 months or so. Hopefully youth development can get back to normal this summer 

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Folk who think this season was some kind of opportunity to play youngsters at the same time as getting promotion are crazy and would have lambasted the club when it would have backfired. 

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Refreshing to read a post on hear which isn’t based on hysteria and is I think a good reflection of the success of football academies in general.

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3 hours ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

The thread title is some claim. I don't see any evidence of us having the best academy.

It’s an odd title for the thread reading the subsequent discussion.

 

Are/have the Academy’s aims been set out anywhere with a plan to  show how they will be achieved?

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This season Irving and Henderson, who are both pretty recent graduates of our academy and relatively young, have had bags of game time.

 

With these two in the side, adding more youngsters would seem to be something of a risk.

 

As well as winning the league, according to some fans, we should have been winning every game at least 4-0. How that was to be achieved with half a team of new/recent academy graduates is beyond me.

 

I guess it’s simply down to the fact that football fans are nuts and rationality often goes out the window when they’re talking about their team.

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8 hours ago, Bongo 1874 said:

So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874.


Take a day off ffs. For your own sake.

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part_time_jambo
8 hours ago, Bongo 1874 said:

So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874.

Would probably carry more weight if you didn't hide behind a username, but still a bit OTT.

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Academy may be good but seems like the products of it get better when leave and other teams get the benefit - ie Doig 

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I’m pretty sure our Youth set-up has been mothballed for most of the season.....which hasn’t helped. The 5 subs instead of 7 didn’t do the promotion of youth any favours either.

 

 

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kingantti1874

I’ve no idea why people think or academy is great.  I’m not the club have even claimed that.

 

as I said - it is nowhere near the best. I know many people have had kids in an around it. And watched plenty of games. 

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1 hour ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

Looked into it this week and the youth narrative is a wee bit of a busted hand tbh. Seems to be a bit of a podcast meme that doesn’t properly add up in reality. 
 

End of the day it has always been the case that from 10-15 youths that gets whittled down to 2 or 3 making it to the first team squads. OP appears to follow the academy so you should know that. Go back however far you want. The one time we were forced to play an entire youth team under Locke in 13-14 with Dylan McGowans and Kevin mchatties etc Hearts literally could not compete, Locke went 20 odd games without a win mid season, we got relegated, and would have been in a relegation battle and still bottom even without the points deduction. In the end, from that crop, only Walker, Paterson and Nicholson made it into an actual Hearts team that was up to Hearts standards and finished 3rd in the league.
 

These players today who are out at Montrose or Cove Rangers need to really skyrocket to go from that level up to Hearts first team, you can look back all through history and you’ll see that most of the time, they don’t. But this season in particular the kids are at an even bigger disadvantage as they are all way way off the game time levels they need. Covid has been a real spanner in the works. How can folk slate the club when the normal progression from U20s to reserves to first team hasn’t even been operational for a year? These kids haven’t even played reserve games till now? They need to get those 10-15 games which they’ll hopefully get now. So we’ll see pre season, but the only names on OPs list there who I’m optimistic about are Logan and Henderson. The rest, I am calling it now, none of them will be playing any games in the Hearts Premiership first team next season. Maybe either Cochrane or Smith, if Irving leaves. Even if we changed the manager it’d be the same. The pressure to win and get above Hibs next season and get to the latter stages of cups, is absolutely immense. And we also actually have a bit of a transfer war chest too, with the large amount of dross that’s getting slashed off the wage bill.  
 

From the last crop it was whittled down to Brandon, Irving, Henderson. A few like Leonard, Morrison, Doig and others chose to leave in search of football or a different path into pro level. Others like Moore weren’t good enough and were let go. 1 was sold for 7 figures and that bankrolls the whole academy for a few more seasons. Yes we’ve not given very many debuts which is disappointing at surface level, but these things do go in cycles as OP will know from his stellar knowledge of youth football. You’ll have a season where there’s a lot of debuts then the next few years it gets whittled down as you sort wheat from the chaff. Next crop will be similar. Great to see the U18s are back playing, I’m sure a number of them will have great careers to look forward to. Maybe 1 of them could even be on to bigger things and english Premier etc. But the vast 90% majority won’t. If there’s any more than 3-4 youth players age 20 or under in a matchday squad of 18 players, I would say we’re doing pretty well. 20% matchday squad representation would be 3-4 academy players under the age of say 23. I think that’s a very decent aim and if you look at the facts we’ve actually been pretty close to that this season, a pity McGill hasn’t got more games but how good is he really? Is he a better player than Haring Mceneff Irving and Halliday? 

 

Maybe you would advocate that 20% squad levels to be say 30%. That would be 6 academy U23s out of the matchday 18 players. I actually agree with that, but would say maybe it would just be an age thing rather than just academy. We need to be signing more 20-21 year old players as well. Thats something we’ve not done. But the main thing, our overall squad age has been too high. I think that is achievable and what I’d be wanting as well  But that would have to be a long term thing to manage. And it would be very ambitious to get consistently to Europe while doing it. Because the fact is, not every kid is particularly good. A lot of them just aren’t. We can sign better quality players than them. Mceneff vs Irving, case in point. Mceneff is pushing for full international caps for his country. Irving will likely never get a cap. So what, we have to just not sign anyone and play Irving? That’s where it gets difficult. 

 

If Cochrane and Smith were not attached to hearts, they were just 20 year old Cove/ Montrose players. Would you be advocating for Hearts to go and buy them for next season from these clubs, for Hearts first team? Talking shite if you say yes tbh 

 

Next season i hope to see 2 or 3 more of them into the squad as the likes of White Berra and others move on. But I expect signings as well. A shame none of these kids are a top Center half as we could really use an 18 year old version of Berra to come through now.  That would be very handy. Next season there will hopefully be a full pre season, youth season and reserves season underway and we will be in a position to give a couple of debuts, if a few of the u18 lads look ready. 

 

Neilson is a long way away from putting that cup exit right. He’s at the bottom of Mount Everest in fact. But we got the promotion job done and avoided the disaster of failing to get up first time of asking as happened with other “biggest clubs in the division” of previous years. So it’s basically time to move on. Maybe he’s at base camp of Mount Everest now. A mammoth task ahead for him to recover, and that’s without of forcing him to have to play an absurd number of 10-15 kids next season. That won’t be happening and it doesn’t matter who the manager is. That’ll never happen. 
 

And if you want to discuss what’s happened to Irving as well, that is pretty obvious to me. Peter Haring has got back to fitness, he is now only 70-80% back to his best and he is better than Irving. Mceneff has come in to the club and he is better than Irving in terms of his pedigree, experience, pace, athleticism. Took some games to get up to speed but showed what he’s about now. Fact is Irving should be signing on, and looking to be Peter Harings shadow and start to copy all these wee tricks Haring plays, traps he sets and the way he skids the ball about. Irving can be that good if he has the patience to be a sponge, he’s only 20 so next season is ideal for him to turn 21, then on to 22 you’d think it’s perfect progression for him. But he isn’t going to be a certain starter or on big money. That’s not “ruining” him that’s just having better players than him and setting high standards for him to reach which at this time, Irving, looking back to the last 2 years under 3 managers, he just hasn’t got there yet. Nowhere near. And those standards I expect to be even higher next season as my expectation is for a Djoum type athletic power house midfielder to come into the engine room as well.

 

As for Doig well to be honest, I’m not going to use him as a stick to beat Neilson and Savage with. Neither of them was at Hearts when he was let go. We have already binned the man who was responsible. Folk need to understand that Craig Levein is gone from Hearts. The first step in recovery from Levein, was to get back promoted. That’s only the starting line. So folk need to start to move on from going over every single cock up the man made, there are literally hundreds. And though Doig was let go, we did still get 7 figures for Hickey so it’s not all bad. Give Savage and Neilson their first chance in the Premiership, that’s what we will do now. And if you don’t like that cancel your dd and stay away till budge and her appointees savage and Neilson are all gone. 

 

So the short version of the above. It’s right to have high hopes for the academy. But the first team bar is high and needs to go way way up next season. 

 

Good post. Especially re the guys on loan in league one. They've hardly been seeing the heather alight at that level. Can't blame Robbie for that. 

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9 hours ago, Bongo 1874 said:

So when are we going to see the youth play a major part within our club?. 

 

Cochrane, Smith, Logan, Henderson McGill, Stone,Hamilton, Moore, Watson. 

 

This was an opportunity to give youth a chance and to build something, instead we have signed dross and neglected our youth. 

 

This was something you agreed on Ann? You and Levein so why are we not seeing it? Why have we put so much money into it with very little return, instead Hibs look like they are going to be quids in, on one of the more promising young left backs in Scotland. 

 

Heart of midlothian football club, the club that ruins youth and many players, we want change Ann and the fans won't accept any less, a set structure, a style of play that the manager can be judged on, a goal and set target of bringing through youth players. 

 

Change needs to happen this is your warning Ann, fans are trying to help you, make the right decision. 

 

Bongo 1874. oot 

😏

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6 minutes ago, DH1986 said:

I’m pretty sure our Youth set-up has been mothballed for most of the season.....which hasn’t helped. The 5 subs instead of 7 didn’t do the promotion of youth any favours either.

 

 

Also people are aware for large parts of the last year young players have had absolutely no games to play and for months on end unable to have even training sessions 

The academy like every other clubs academies have been literally mothballed for a year.

There was absolutely no chance of kids making the breakthrough this season.

Due to the pandemic many academies will have lost a year of some of there best young talent and likely many will have missed out on there chance of making a career in football, this will not just apply to Hearts.

 

 

 

 

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colinmaroon
47 minutes ago, Hesh said:

It’s an odd title for the thread reading the subsequent discussion.

 

Are/have the Academy’s aims been set out anywhere with a plan to  show how they will be achieved?

 

4 hours ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

The thread title is some claim. I don't see any evidence of us having the best academy.

 

It's irony!

 

 

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portobellojambo1
8 hours ago, Awbdy Oot said:

It has already been explained that the club felt it was better to loan out the young players so that they could perhaps get around 15 games rather than not going on loan and maybe getting 1 or 2 games.

 

But why put them out on loan,when we have a first team that they could have been used in, to get all the experience they needed in an environment they work in. Gary Locke prepared the youth for the first team during the season prior to us being placed in the Championship last time, and Neilson had a ready made team once officially announced as coach. They are either good enough or not and finding out this time round would have helped the new coach when next season starts, we needed to know if they are good enough to play for HMFC, not if they are good enough to play for Montrose, Cowdenbeath or the likes.

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Bad Religion
21 minutes ago, portobellojambo1 said:

But why put them out on loan,when we have a first team that they could have been used in, to get all the experience they needed in an environment they work in. Gary Locke prepared the youth for the first team during the season prior to us being placed in the Championship last time, and Neilson had a ready made team once officially announced as coach. They are either good enough or not and finding out this time round would have helped the new coach when next season starts, we needed to know if they are good enough to play for HMFC, not if they are good enough to play for Montrose, Cowdenbeath or the likes.


Pretty sure he is bending the truth, unsurprisingly. I think the 15 games to one or two reference was used to justify signing Shay Logan rather than recalling the boy at Cove Rangers on loan. Happy to be corrected if wrong. 

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avhudtheteeshirt
19 minutes ago, portobellojambo1 said:

But why put them out on loan,when we have a first team that they could have been used in, to get all the experience they needed in an environment they work in. Gary Locke prepared the youth for the first team during the season prior to us being placed in the Championship last time, and Neilson had a ready made team once officially announced as coach. They are either good enough or not and finding out this time round would have helped the new coach when next season starts, we needed to know if they are good enough to play for HMFC, not if they are good enough to play for Montrose, Cowdenbeath or the likes.

Given its a tried and tested route for young players, it seems churlish to keep them on the side lines at Tynecastle.

Years ago youngsters were sent out to Junior sides to toughen up, now older players work that way in reverse, finishing their careers in the Juniors.

In the last season we have seen some really good youngsters playing against us, the problem is who do they belong to?

Quite a few of the best ones belong to Premiership teams out on loan to these clubs, if they can get results doing it, why can't we???

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2 hours ago, fast_blood said:

Folk who think this season was some kind of opportunity to play youngsters at the same time as getting promotion are crazy and would have lambasted the club when it would have backfired. 

what should have happened was us winning the league a lot sooner than we have then we could have played more of the youths. We could have loaned then out til end of jan window and then bring them back as the league should have been won (or at least a game or so away) by then and then we could have played them, thus giving them game time earlier in the season on loan then coming back and getting game time with us.

 

obviously it has taken us longer to win the league than it should have and the lower leagues were stopped so that could not happen

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2 minutes ago, milky_26 said:

what should have happened was us winning the league a lot sooner than we have then we could have played more of the youths. We could have loaned then out til end of jan window and then bring them back as the league should have been won (or at least a game or so away) by then and then we could have played them, thus giving them game time earlier in the season on loan then coming back and getting game time with us.

 

obviously it has taken us longer to win the league than it should have and the lower leagues were stopped so that could not happen

 

In all honesty mate, in that scenario it would have been very unlikely that there would have been any more than a couple of young players getting game time at the end of the season. We need to give time to players that missed out on reserve games this season. 

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34 minutes ago, portobellojambo1 said:

But why put them out on loan,when we have a first team that they could have been used in, to get all the experience they needed in an environment they work in. Gary Locke prepared the youth for the first team during the season prior to us being placed in the Championship last time, and Neilson had a ready made team once officially announced as coach. They are either good enough or not and finding out this time round would have helped the new coach when next season starts, we needed to know if they are good enough to play for HMFC, not if they are good enough to play for Montrose, Cowdenbeath or the likes.

I completely agree. It would seem reasonable that working with the first team to understand what formation they play and what the expectation would be of you if you got a chance would be sensible. Of course that would mean playing a settled formation every week instead of tinkering like a bargain basement Ranieri. Sending kids out in the pandemic seems a questionable strategy at the moment. It is a massive bugbear of mine that our yoing players receive intensive coaching all the way through their Hearts careers until they get to the first team. It was notable that one of Stendel's limited successes was using Moore and Henderson in roles that utilised the qualities they had. This season all we have seen is poor signings played to the point where they are unselectable.

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Brighton Jambo

The ‘we hate’ post is outstanding and articulates my views better then I ever could so I won’t repeat that.

 

Our academy isn’t the best but it’s far from the worst either and we have seen 2/3 players make first team appearances this season with a couple of very promising youngsters to come through.

 

What gets me is the relentless searching for things to criticise the club for.  On Friday we had threads about the clubs Twitter account for gods sake and today we are starting on the academy, ironically after seeing one of our academy products produce a great performance in the win the sealed the championship.  
 

I really despair that the pattern is now set for the whole summer where every move and every signing will be met with relentless negativity.  Look at the signing for Logan as an example.  A short term, solid, sensible signing that we needed during a bit of an injury crisis and that then allowed Souttar to return in a back three.  And since he’s played we have had two clean sheets.  Yet the negativity on here was unbelievable.  A long few months ahead I fear. 

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24 minutes ago, fast_blood said:

 

In all honesty mate, in that scenario it would have been very unlikely that there would have been any more than a couple of young players getting game time at the end of the season. We need to give time to players that missed out on reserve games this season. 

not having the ability to have 5 subs has not helped either

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Independence
7 hours ago, Ribble said:


Can we please put the Doig bullshit to bed? 
 

Doig left because he was rightly behind Hickey, he didn’t have the character to put his head down and challenge so left and went to hibs. We’re not 1980’s Dundee united holding young players prisoner on 6 year contracts ffs

 

He’s doing well for himself at them but isn’t anywhere near the level hibs make him out to be and there is no telling how good or bad he’d have been for us.

 

Theres a thousand things to have a go at the club about but picking Hickey over Doig most definitely isn’t one of them and nobody would be showing the slightest bit of attention to Doig had Kingsley maintained his early season form. 

Common sense on KB!!!! Wow!

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Brighton Jambo
3 minutes ago, milky_26 said:

not having the ability to have 5 subs has not helped either

That’s a really good point.  In some of the games we were 2/3 goals ahead in I am sure we would have seen the youngsters get game time if we could have used more subs and had a bigger bench.  

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