*****Official Celtic v Heart of Midlothian Match Thread *****

[Rocky jamboa]

I'm not overly bothered about today- it's all about the final now. However, from what I watched today:-

 

Atkinson - great going forward but too loose in defence. Smith is maybe  better option for the final

Cochrane - I really like him. Hope we tie him down

Haring - so composed. Hope we re-sign him

Ginelly - we could do with an upgrade 

Simms - Hope we sign him on a permanent deal in the summer. Pay £1m and 10k per week. We will easily get it back. Took his goal very well

[Tom Hardy’s Dug]

I thought Cochrane was in the “pass” side of things today.  Not sure he did much wrong. Shat it much less than Natty.

Edited May 7, 2022 by Tom Hardy’s Dug

[Aussie Jambo]

I will say though. Ginnelly, GMS & Boyce need to GTF. All bar Simms from our loan players need to GTF as well. 

We really need to spend big and bring in quality players to compete in Europe as that’s definitely our cash cow next season. The rest of our players can then fight it out for a first team spot. Then we’ll have a team that might beat the arse cheeks. 

Or we will only ever be third best in Scotland. 60% of our team is excellent the rest is guff.Just need that 40% filled.  But one can dream eh. 

It must be tempting to join our club now as they will get European football action.

Lets hope we do bring in bigger players. 

[Debut 4]

8 hours ago, JimmyCant said:

You seriously expect a rebuild if we don’t win the cup ? A team that finished streets ahead in 3rd needs rebuilt ?

 

Well do very VERY well to win the cup. I’m not expecting us to win it. But there is no way on earth we need to rip it up and start again, even if we get we’ll beat.

I don’t think rebuild necessarily means a rip up job.  Maintaining being 3rd is a challenge in itself, it’s something we need to aim for and that takes upgrading/replacing players every season.   We may be streets ahead this season but other teams may improve and close the gap.

 

We should be looking to close the gap on the big two similar to the mid/late 90s.   When JJ set off in 1995 and got us to a cup final in his first season, it certainly wasn’t his best side, as you’d expect given it was his debut campaign.  If anything, it highlighted our flaws when we lost heavily in the Final.   We got better and better after that and 97/98 was an incredible season.  
 

I’d like to see us hit some strong consistent form season on season. That would be an achievement to start with.  And I’m pretty confident it would give us the basis to go and win cups more often, at worst, more finals more often.  
 

 

[chrystaf]

8 hours ago, avhudtheteeshirt said:

So you think in the final we will sit back and let Rangers play????

I think losing today has somehow got fans thinking negative thoughts!!!

Come the final we will go at them, and hopefully not stop!!!

We sat back and let Hibs play in the semi.

[Rocky jamboa]

18 minutes ago, Aussie Jambo said:

I will say though. Ginnelly, GMS & Boyce need to GTF. All bar Simms from our loan players need to GTF as well. 

We really need to spend big and bring in quality players to compete in Europe as that’s definitely our cash cow next season. The rest of our players can then fight it out for a first team spot. Then we’ll have a team that might beat the arse cheeks. 

Or we will only ever be third best in Scotland. 60% of our team is excellent the rest is guff.Just need that 40% filled.  But one can dream eh. 

It must be tempting to join our club now as they will get European football action.

Lets hope we do bring in bigger players. 

That's a bit harsh. Cochrane's been good and I'd be keen to keep. I like Woodburn as well and think he could be good long term for us. I like Taylor Moore as well. 

 

Far better than some of the loan duds we've had in previous years. 

[Ked]

29 minutes ago, chrystaf said:

We sat back and let Hibs play in the semi.

We controlled the game .

Hibs flew into tackles and gave it their all but it amounted to nothing.

 

[RobNox]

49 minutes ago, Debut 4 said:

I don’t think rebuild necessarily means a rip up job.  Maintaining being 3rd is a challenge in itself, it’s something we need to aim for and that takes upgrading/replacing players every season.   We may be streets ahead this season but other teams may improve and close the gap.

I think that's the key, if we can strengthen our position as 3rd best then that will help us maintain a financial advantage over the bottom 9.  The challenge then is to try and close the gap on the OF.

 

Thankfully we are in a financial position to strengthen the first team if we use our Euro windfall wisely, and it does appear that we now have our recruitment sorted out.

 

The problem after the 1998 season was that, having pushed the OF close and won a cup, our financial situation meant we had to sell our best players over the next couple of seasons, rather than strengthen the team we had.

[RobNox]

23 minutes ago, Ked said:

We controlled the game .

Hibs flew into tackles and gave it their all but it amounted to nothing.

 

Basically, if Sibbick clears that ball instead of trying to usher it out of play, we don't let them straight back into the game and half their end reach for the empty seat outfits.

[wattie exploited]

5 hours ago, 1971fozzy said:

🤣🤣🤣🤣 your something else

in fact most off the team where off it today  but its normal for when we go to Glasgow  

[wattie exploited]

6 hours ago, Bazzas right boot said:

 

He wasn't shit.

 

He showed glimpses of skill, had a few good passes and tried hard against a good side away from home where the forward players were frequently isolated.

 

This he'e shit/ brilliant  analysis of players and performances is worse than Berra's and Boyd's slavering's on offer.

 

he wasn't great today if you think he was its you that is slavering 

[lmc1]

Quite a few could be named but boyce and sibbick were the most woeful for me today, like men down. Really hope Simms stays. 

[Bazzas right boot]

1 hour ago, wattie exploited said:

he wasn't great today if you think he was its you that is slavering 

 

Never said he was great today.

[JFK-1]

1 hour ago, RobNox said:

I think that's the key, if we can strengthen our position as 3rd best then that will help us maintain a financial advantage over the bottom 9.  The challenge then is to try and close the gap on the OF.

 

Thankfully we are in a financial position to strengthen the first team if we use our Euro windfall wisely, and it does appear that we now have our recruitment sorted out.

 

The problem after the 1998 season was that, having pushed the OF close and won a cup, our financial situation meant we had to sell our best players over the next couple of seasons, rather than strengthen the team we had.

 

I think winning this Euro windfall in consecutive seasons, while denying it to a rival, is the key to a stranglehold on 3rd.

[gregzy2k7]

2 hours ago, Aussie Jambo said:

I will say though. Ginnelly, GMS & Boyce need to GTF. All bar Simms from our loan players need to GTF as well. 

We really need to spend big and bring in quality players to compete in Europe as that’s definitely our cash cow next season. The rest of our players can then fight it out for a first team spot. Then we’ll have a team that might beat the arse cheeks. 

Or we will only ever be third best in Scotland. 60% of our team is excellent the rest is guff.Just need that 40% filled.  But one can dream eh. 

It must be tempting to join our club now as they will get European football action.

Lets hope we do bring in bigger players. 

Hard to disagree with that tbh, although I would keep Boyce as a back up/squad player, the other loaners can all go though, resigning Simms would be a massive boost imo but we do need higher quality players in our first team if we are going to seriously compete next season, especially as we are in Europe too.

[OmiyaHearts]

3 hours ago, mickycameron98 said:

Why oh why are we so poor through in Glasgow. 20 defeats in 21 at parkhead! It's hard reading. The Rangers and Celtic teams aren't even as good as the early 2000's old firm teams but I think we even took more points then! The gap is just as wide as ever!

Without looking, I imagine most teams have record like that at Parkhead in recent times. The gap in resources is massive. Let's not get too down about it

[Watt-Zeefuik]

6 hours ago, portobellojambo1 said:

I went along today expecting a loss, yet at the same time hoping we could get a result, and there is nothing wrong with such an outlook, in my opinion. We started the game well, in hindsight maybe too well, might have been better to go 1-0 up with 3 minutes to play rather than after playing three minutes. I thought there were spells where we played OK, looked like we could compete, but ar the same time their goals didn't come as a shock. Not sure what if anything it offered as preparation for the final, only time will tell.

 

At halftime I thought this as well—it's the kind of thing a really poor commentator says during a match and makes you want to throw a shoe at the TV, but we might have hurt ourselves a bit by scoring so early. It rattled Celtic and woke them up and they roared back. If that goal doesn't come until the 40', maybe it's still the first goal of the game and the whole day goes differently.

 

Ah, well. In hindsight a lot of our best players stayed on the bench today. I am not ready to write off Sibbick yet because I think he could still improve a lot with a full summer to train with us but he's not ready for full time duty in Glasgow yet. Atkinson's first thought is to try to break forward which is great until he's up against a top notch winger and then it's a recipe for repeatedly giving up possession in our own half—he really needs to be a wingback off of a back 3 rather than part of a back 4.

 

I don't want to run down McKay as he's one of our finest players and everyone has bad days but today was a bad day for him. Nothing he tried came off—a couple of good passes to release players but far more lost possession with nothing to show for it.

 

We need another winger in the summer who is in the Ginelley or GMS mold but a few levels up—someone who can get goals and who can break down defenders with the ball at his feet. McKay is outstanding with his passing but needs a compliment on the other side who's less of a precision chisel and more of a sledgehammer.

[stuart500]

It's sickening that so many key decisions go against us time and time again in these games. 

 

Offside goal beat us last time. Two more goals this time could have been avoided with correct refereeing. 

 

It's hard enough to beat these utter ***** with their huge financial advantage but near impossible with biased/incompetent referees.

 

I do believe however we can close the gap on them if we continue to grow as a club and keep getting into Europe. Maybe just maybe we'll be able to get a better deal from VAR. All teams out with the gruesome twosome will need to call out the blatant cheating from our "neutral" officials.

[RobNox]

16 minutes ago, stuart500 said:

Maybe just maybe we'll be able to get a better deal from VAR. All teams out with the gruesome twosome will need to call out the blatant cheating from our "neutral" officials.

Unfortunately, the VAR will be drawn from the same pool of "neutral" officials.

[Aussie Jambo]

2 hours ago, gregzy2k7 said:

Hard to disagree with that tbh, although I would keep Boyce as a back up/squad player, the other loaners can all go though, resigning Simms would be a massive boost imo but we do need higher quality players in our first team if we are going to seriously compete next season, especially as we are in Europe too.

👏👏

[19/05/2012]

2 hours ago, Barack said:

Out of all those stats, there is one that jumps out at me. And it's not the scoreline.

 

Has to be fouls i was sitting watching Sibbick yesterday and i dont think he put a tackle in the full game would love to see his stats. The amount of time he was looking around to see where Celtic players were to only let them run off him was laughable. Also Cochrane and Atkinson let so many free crosses come into our box we will never get points in Glasgow if we dont want to compete.

[sjh1874]

If the ref does his job, McGregor gets penalised and we frustrate them 0-1 at half time.

 

he didn’t, we didn’t, same old same old

 

i go to most games home and away but had no intention of attending yesterday’s pre written script.

 

as a group we’ve been excellent this year, nothing happened yesterday to change that either way.

 

for an away record as poor as it is you’d need to apply a large pinch of salt to give it credence given the way these games are officiated 

Edited May 8, 2022 by sjh1874

[8ac]

Let's put this game into perspective .  We've played Celtic in Glasgow when they're desperate to clinch the title.. Hackett, Souttar, Beni and Devlin are all out.

We compete but lose 4 goals, all debatable

1- Sibbick is clearly fouled.

2- whilst it was over the line, Craig Gordon was fouled in the act of saving it.

3- the forward standing in front of Craig, is in an offside position and blocks his view

4- even sprtscene conceded the scorer was offside in the build up.

 

This game was not important to us.  Yes, we need to strengthen but we are not as far behind the OF as some suggest.

 

 

 

 

 

[The Old Tolbooth]

All I saw yesterday was a team desperate not to pick up any more injuries before the cup final, and that pleases me no end, it's exactly how I wanted us to approach the game, fair play Robbie. 

[sadj]

10 hours ago, Ked said:

We controlled the game .

Hibs flew into tackles and gave it their all but it amounted to nothing.

 

Exactly , Hibs played better than they have but we had gears to go up and were utterly in control of the game and the better chances were ours when we picked them off. 

 

11 hours ago, chrystaf said:

We sat back and let Hibs play in the semi.

Yup once we were 2-0 up and they pulled one back we sat back a bit and picked them off unfortunately we didnt take the chances we created which were all better than anything Hibs did bar Porteous’s header. We were in control too. At no point in that game did I feel Hibs were taking anything apart from a loss. Awful take

Edited May 8, 2022 by sadj

[King prawn]

17 fouls 0 cards - another day in Glasgow 

[sjh1874]

28 minutes ago, King prawn said:

17 fouls 0 cards - another day in Glasgow 

 Kyogo or whatever he is called should’ve walked, three times left a bit in, Ref counted them to him but no card 

[wattie exploited]

10 hours ago, Bazzas right boot said:

 

Never said he was great today.

true you never said that  hopefully he will be brilliant against the rangers especially the final  !!!!!

[Tasavallan]

All I observed was a team trying to stay injury free versus a team out to win the league at home.

 

Simms goal was unexpected and changed the rhythm of the game for a bit, as did poor officiating.

 

 

[chrystaf]

2 hours ago, sadj said:

Exactly , Hibs played better than they have but we had gears to go up and were utterly in control of the game and the better chances were ours when we picked them off. 

 

Yup once we were 2-0 up and they pulled one back we sat back a bit and picked them off unfortunately we didnt take the chances we created which were all better than anything Hibs did bar Porteous’s header. We were in control too. At no point in that game did I feel Hibs were taking anything apart from a loss. Awful take

I'd certainly argue that we were in control. Our heads went down when they scored and the second half we let them into the game. Many of my fellow supporters said it was nail-biting stuff.

Craig doesn't save that and it's "game on" for them.

 

The whole point of this post is that we have a habit of "turning off" in games.

 

[LochcarronJambo]

Yet again we play either of the bigots, we have to suffer another official who cannot make an honest decision……love my country with a passion but **** me the west coast corruption just goes on & on & on & on……..

[LochcarronJambo]

….thats why i will be chortling when Celtic get their usual tanking in each Champions league game & be hoping Frankfurt ram it out the other bigots 

[Bazzas right boot]

1 hour ago, wattie exploited said:

true you never said that  hopefully he will be brilliant against the rangers especially the final  !!!!!

 

here, here!

[Maple Leaf]

16 hours ago, mickycameron98 said:

Why oh why are we so poor through in Glasgow. 20 defeats in 21 at parkhead! It's hard reading. The Rangers and Celtic teams aren't even as good as the early 2000's old firm teams but I think we even took more points then! The gap is just as wide as ever!

Indeed.  No-one reasonably expects us to compete financially with Celtic, but an occasional win at Parkhead would be nice.

[Papa]

Sadly this group of officials are arguably the most weegie-biased in my near 60 years of spectating. It is hard enough trying to compete against the bigot brothers given the huge gap in resources; it is nigh impossible when we are also always on the wrong side of poor decisions.

 

it is also galling when the SFA hand pick certain referees and linos for when we play the weegies.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Papa
Add

[schillaci]

7 hours ago, 19/05/2012 said:

Has to be fouls i was sitting watching Sibbick yesterday and i dont think he put a tackle in the full game would love to see his stats. The amount of time he was looking around to see where Celtic players were to only let them run off him was laughable. Also Cochrane and Atkinson let so many free crosses come into our box we will never get points in Glasgow if we dont want to compete.

Let's switch that round. HMFC 8 fouls and two yellow cards. Celtic 17 fouls and no yellow.  

 

Why would you risk a card? Three tackles and you're off. And the comments would be a variation of "we know we need to be careful in Glasgow, why did he give the ref a decision to make?"

 

In the past Robbie has had the guys practice a man down. 

 

It's genuinely a case of they can't win.

[Mikey1874]

On 07/05/2022 at 13:55, jambopilms said:

Nothing to do with mentality. Everything to do with quality and the gap is getting bigger due to the amounts of money they will get in Europe. Zero we can do about it.