***Official Heart of Midlothian vs FC Zurich Match Thread - live on BBC Scotland ***

[heatonjambo]

13 minutes ago, Bauld said:

Grant will take the heat for his actions but I don't think we were scoring tonight with 11 men.

 

After the first 45 I think that game could have gone for 180 minutes and we weren't scoring.

 

We might have plenty creativity but ****ing hell we're toothless when it comes to making it count. 

This

 

felt when we didn’t score in the first half it would need a lucky effort in the second 

[vegas-voss]

Grant dived no doubt anybody saying he can't see why he wouldn't try it though doesn't watch much football as the defender lunges and invites Grant to go for it.Most refs give it **** we have been stung by that kind of dive ourselves.

[OTT]

3 minutes ago, Boghell51 said:

Zurich forward goes down twice in box in first half clearly looking for a pen and no yellow, referee telling him to get up ,then basically 2foots Rowles no yellow, cant get my head around this european mentality

 

 

I think we lacked a Stevie Naismith/Scott Brown character in the refs ear all game. 

 

I reckon someone like that would have been pushing from minute 1 for everything and anything. Perhaps we need to find that sort of player. I think Cammy Devlin has it in him but maybe need a bit more. 

[Hearts1975]

1 minute ago, JimmyCant said:

Havent seen it yet but looked to me like the trailing leg caught him

The trailing leg did catch him

Not even up for debate

[Exile fae Main Street]

Boyce, dearie me,that header.

Grant, can't defend him, cost us any chance of winning,.

SIBBICK, I don't like crucified any Hearts player, but please,please don't play him in defence ever again, he can't defend, awful.

 

 

 

 

[Rudi5kaceldream1ng]

**** it. Move on. As soo. As possible. We still stand to make a buck in the conference. Good enough for roma good enough for us. 

 

[Thomaso]

Did Kingsley go off injured?

[LochcarronJambo]

2 minutes ago, Exile fae Main Street said:

Boyce, dearie me,that header.

Grant, can't defend him, cost us any chance of winning,.

SIBBICK, I don't like crucified any Hearts player, but please,please don't play him in defence ever again, he can't defend, awful.

 

 

 

 

Totally right

[vegas-voss]

Just now, The Maroon Pound said:

So is the squad weaker just now than the squad that finished last season? 

 

 

No and some players who were here last season are actually looking even better as well.Devlin looked great tonight and Grant alongside him was doing well.Cochrane again very good.Rowles also a great addition we already know Shankland has already performed well.

 

Nobody surely thinks we didn't look good tonight up until the sending off

[usagi]

13 minutes ago, Cade said:

 

I 

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by usagi

[JimmyCant]

1 minute ago, Rudi5kaceldream1ng said:

**** it. Move on. As soo. As possible. We still stand to make a buck in the conference. Good enough for roma good enough for us. 

 

Aye. Nearly my tram stop. Head home, watch tv for an hour. Leave this place to the angry and unstable types and work out who we want in the draw before bawbaws.

 

Night all.

[colinmaroon]

19 minutes ago, Captain Lithuania said:

You’re clearly the bam. I’ll always support Hearts. I don’t support players who cheat. 

 

 

Don't believe you.

 

 

[Jack Torrance]

We've qualified for the Europa Conference league. Let's do this.

[maltese jambo]

4 minutes ago, OTT said:

 

I think we lacked a Stevie Naismith/Scott Brown character in the refs ear all game. 

 

I reckon someone like that would have been pushing from minute 1 for everything and anything. Perhaps we need to find that sort of player. I think Cammy Devlin has it in him but maybe need a bit more. 

I think we need to stick away our chances and stop making bad decisions. Then who cares about the ref.

[OTT]

2 minutes ago, Bazzas right boot said:

 

 

Nah. 

 

If he wasn't on a booking you maybe try that. 

If on a booking- shot or cross. 

The worse thing was he was in control of the ball and could have even scored. He was in a great position. 

 

Cost us the chance of the win with a daft decision. 

 

Agree 100%. Grant isn't a youngster, he's 27 and has played over 200 games. He has to take responsibility for that. Even with Boyces (criminal) misses, we were still in the tie, but going down to 10 men killed us. It stretched us and Zurich who hadn't a sniff up to that point were handed the momentum on a silver platter. 

 

Even on a booking, with so long left, it was straight idiocy. If we'd had 2 minutes left and he thought **** it. I suppose fair enough, its not like our forwards were doing much anyway. 

 

Its experience and for a 27 year old senior player to throw such an important game away for us, I just don't know how he comes back from that. If you're Neilson, how do you trust him again after that? Maybe sounds dramatic, but against Hibs, I'm certainly not relying on Grant, his crossing was woeful and in the first leg he went missing. Not a player you want in big games. 

[edramone]

I'm not usually paranoid but with a Belgian referee I'm sure there was a conspiracy of chocolate at play

[Badonde]

Hopefully sign 2 forwards a centre mid and centre back before tbe window shuts.  Can’t see it like as we appear to be doing feck all.  Where is the extra money going if it’s not being invested into the squad

[The Future's Maroon]

9 minutes ago, Bazzas right boot said:

 

 

Nah. 

 

If he wasn't on a booking you maybe try that. 

If on a booking- shot or cross. 

The worse thing was he was in control of the ball and could have even scored. He was in a great position. 

 

Cost us the chance of the win with a daft decision. 

Bang on the money (although not condoning diving, which he clearly did)

Edited August 25, 2022 by The Future's Maroon

[OTT]

Just now, maltese jambo said:

I think we need to stick away our chances and stop making bad decisions. Then who cares about the ref.

 

Absolutely, I was replying to the post about why the other player wasn't booked. If we had someone in his ear all game he'd maybe have been booked. 

 

Maybe need an outfield player to be a captain in that way. 

 

 

[A Shoreditch Heart]

FFS, please can we not put the blame on any of our players tonight. Yes It was very frustrating, but we played some great stuff and just didn't get the breaks in front of goal - upwards and onwards.

[BelgeJambo]

Prague is a better run ashore than Budapest ⚓️⚓️🇱🇻🇱🇻

[Pasquale for King]

1 minute ago, OTT said:

 

Agree 100%. Grant isn't a youngster, he's 27 and has played over 200 games. He has to take responsibility for that. Even with Boyces (criminal) misses, we were still in the tie, but going down to 10 men killed us. It stretched us and Zurich who hadn't a sniff up to that point were handed the momentum on a silver platter. 

 

Even on a booking, with so long left, it was straight idiocy. If we'd had 2 minutes left and he thought **** it. I suppose fair enough, its not like our forwards were doing much anyway. 

 

Its experience and for a 27 year old senior player to throw such an important game away for us, I just don't know how he comes back from that. If you're Neilson, how do you trust him again after that? Maybe sounds dramatic, but against Hibs, I'm certainly not relying on Grant, his crossing was woeful and in the first leg he went missing. Not a player you want in big games. 

A bit OTT, how can anyone trust Boyce to take a chance again. Grant played well but needed to take the contact by running into the guy. All a learning experience for our players, and management. 

[Fozzyonthefence]

13 minutes ago, avhudtheteeshirt said:

Hate to say it, but I was wary of the diving tactics of their players before a ball was kicked at the first leg!

We needed a strong ref for this game, but, he played Zurich game for them!

2 first half bookings for fair challenges, but their players rolling around and the ref bought it?

Grant's penalty claim, I would say there was contact and he went down, 2nd booking and Zurich took it with both hands!!!

It was a great game from Hearts, if it was a better ref it could have been so different.

Nearly forgot about the challenge on Rowles, could have easily been red, nothing but a foul????

Nope, Grant was already going down before any contact (if there was contact).  It was like Edoard’s cheating for the penalty in the cup final.  If you’re going to do it, don’t try it when you’re on a yellow ffs!  Personally I’d prefer footballers just didn’t cheat irrespective of whether they’re playing for us or against us. 

[GinRummy]

We made an absolute ***** of that. Hard to imagine a better chance of europa league again. Gutted. 

[Bazzas right boot]

3 minutes ago, OTT said:

 

Agree 100%. Grant isn't a youngster, he's 27 and has played over 200 games. He has to take responsibility for that. Even with Boyces (criminal) misses, we were still in the tie, but going down to 10 men killed us. It stretched us and Zurich who hadn't a sniff up to that point were handed the momentum on a silver platter. 

 

Even on a booking, with so long left, it was straight idiocy. If we'd had 2 minutes left and he thought **** it. I suppose fair enough, its not like our forwards were doing much anyway. 

 

Its experience and for a 27 year old senior player to throw such an important game away for us, I just don't know how he comes back from that. If you're Neilson, how do you trust him again after that? Maybe sounds dramatic, but against Hibs, I'm certainly not relying on Grant, his crossing was woeful and in the first leg he went missing. Not a player you want in big games. 

 

 

Hopefully he learns tho,  harsh lesson. 

 

Private pyle treatment firm his teammates and we move on. 

 

[Walter Bishop]

7 minutes ago, Thomaso said:

Did Kingsley go off injured?

Looked like a hamstring problem. 

[151]

12 minutes ago, Bazzas right boot said:

 

 

Nah. 

 

If he wasn't on a booking you maybe try that. 

If on a booking- shot or cross. 

The worse thing was he was in control of the ball and could have even scored. He was in a great position. 

 

Cost us the chance of the win with a daft decision. 

 

This. Shouldn't have even been on his mind when on a booking. 

[Pasquale for King]

I think we’ve been unlucky there and we shouldn’t be gutted, they’re not great shakes and will be humped by good teams. We live to fight another day, learn our lessons, sign another three players and look forward to a decent draw in the Conference. 
Great atmosphere and well

done to their fans, apart from the ***** that threw coins at Gordon. 

[Pasquale for King]

2 minutes ago, Walter Bishop said:

Looked like a hamstring problem. 

Yeah Smith indicated that to the bench at a corner. 

[Rudi5kaceldream1ng]

3 minutes ago, GinRummy said:

We made an absolute ***** of that. Hard to imagine a better chance of europa league again. Gutted. 

I'll say it again. Move on. There's a matter of hours before our conference league draw. I'm well up for it. We stand to make a buck in more winnable games and a chance of an extended run. 

 

Never ever look at what could have been. Look at what is. And what we have is better than most of the rest of these **** in our league at present. 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Rudi5kaceldream1ng

[BelgeJambo]

4 minutes ago, A Shoreditch Heart said:

FFS, please can we not put the blame on any of our players tonight. Yes It was very frustrating, but we played some great stuff and just didn't get the breaks in front of goal - upwards and onwards.

👏👏👏🇱🇻🇱🇻

[tiger Rudi]

Thought we played brilliantly in that first half. Just not clinical enough. Unfortunately the bit of space in the box was found by Boyce who could do nothing of note every time. His header was one that was possibly a bit unlucky but his lack of an end product when running into the box let's us down every time. You need to take your chances at this level. We didn't get many. I've been criticised for mentioning the likes of Nouble, Carrol etc etc but when things are not working we need another option. How many headers or knock ons did we win tonight? We played fantastic football with no end product unfortunately. As for Ginnelly. OK he never had any quality balls played up to him when he came on but I watched him at one point when Craig was trying to get the ball away early. Ginnelly wasnt even looking at him. He was wandering about looking at his own feet. That's what frustrates me about him. 11 men on the park we might have won. Just hope we still have a few signings in the pipeline. 

[Exile fae Main Street]

Well at least we have the Conference,  but we MUST sign another CB, Sibbick must be kept away from our defence, and sorry, but Boyce is finished, he's like a boxer on the ropes...and that's when we were on top in the 1st half...

[avhudtheteeshirt]

3 minutes ago, Fozzyonthefence said:

Nope, Grant was already going down before any contact (if there was contact).  It was like Edoard’s cheating for the penalty in the cup final.  If you’re going to do it, don’t try it when you’re on a yellow ffs!  Personally I’d prefer footballers just didn’t cheat irrespective of whether they’re playing for us or against us. 

So Zurich players must have p**sed you off tonight, the only difference was the ref bought into their antics!!!!

[Hearts1975]

25 minutes ago, NB GIN said:

We were good but rotten in the final third 

 

We had some good chances and at that level you need to take them 

We do need another 1 or 2 options up front, agreed. 

Thought we controlled the game tonight and passed the ball well, especially first half. 

Its a horrible feeling and purely because that game was there for the taking for us.

Appreciate we have the conf to fall back on but still gutted all the same  

 

[Captain Lithuania]

8 minutes ago, colinmaroon said:

 

 

Don't believe you.

 

 

That’s fine mate you’re clearly a “bigger fan” than me. 

[maroonedinbriz]

When I heard on the radio that Sibbick had come on my first thought was 'oh shit'. By the time the TV came back on...........

 

[OTT]

2 minutes ago, Pasquale for King said:

A bit OTT, how can anyone trust Boyce to take a chance again. Grant played well but needed to take the contact by running into the guy. All a learning experience for our players, and management. 

 

I mean I don't. 

 

Boyce is on a steep decline, his confidence is either shot or he's playing with Berras boots or something. Every opportunity he had turned to shit, take the miss against Hibs at Hampden, we were extremely lucky that day it didn't come back to bite us. Tonight, his misses did. Robbie and Savage IMO need to be looking at how do they sign quality that puts him on the bench, because I think we're always going to have those moments with him and perhaps reduced game time might be better for his fitness & confidence (and my heart ). 

 

I'd like a proper, real number 10. Boyce is a striker playing as a 10. I don't think its his natural position. 

[Pans Jambo]

1 minute ago, Exile fae Main Street said:

Well at least we have the Conference,  but we MUST sign another CB, Sibbick must be kept away from our defence, and sorry, but Boyce is finished, he's like a boxer on the ropes...and that's when we were on top in the 1st half...

This!

[Ernie Eskilsson]

13 minutes ago, heatonjambo said:

This

 

felt when we didn’t score in the first half it would need a lucky effort in the second 

The problem tonight was Robbie’s CM selection. leaving Haring out and playing Devlin, Grant and Boyce was. Suicide..

[Thomaso]

6 minutes ago, Walter Bishop said:

Looked like a hamstring problem. 

Great! Kingsley and Halkett out! 🤷‍♂️

[GinRummy]

3 minutes ago, Rudi5kaceldream1ng said:

I'll say it again. Move on. There's a matter of hours before our conference league draw. I'm well up for it. We stand to make a buck in more winnable games and a chance of an extended run. 

 

Never ever look at what could have been. Look at what is. And what we have is better than most of the rest of these **** in our league at present. 

Give me a chance mate. The games only been over for 45 minutes. I’ll be done moaning when I’m ready. 

[Thomaso]

1 minute ago, Ernie Eskilsson said:

The problem tonight was Robbie’s CM selection. leaving Haring out and playing Devlin, Grant and Boyce was. Suicide..

They totally dominated the midfield until the red card!

Haring was poor AGAIN when he came on.

[avhudtheteeshirt]

1 minute ago, Ernie Eskilsson said:

The problem tonight was Robbie’s CM selection. leaving Haring out and playing Devlin, Grant and Boyce was. Suicide..

How can you say that?

Up until half time we were cruising, they couldn't get near our half?

They only really got a total grip on us after the red card!!!

[Pasquale for King]

1 minute ago, OTT said:

 

I mean I don't. 

 

Boyce is on a steep decline, his confidence is either shot or he's playing with Berras boots or something. Every opportunity he had turned to shit, take the miss against Hibs at Hampden, we were extremely lucky that day it didn't come back to bite us. Tonight, his misses did. Robbie and Savage IMO need to be looking at how do they sign quality that puts him on the bench, because I think we're always going to have those moments with him and perhaps reduced game time might be better for his fitness & confidence (and my heart ). 

 

I'd like a proper, real number 10. Boyce is a striker playing as a 10. I don't think its his natural position. 

Definitely. The time on his awful left foot instead of going on his right towards goal was bad enough but the header is awful tbh. Unfortunately the manager does trust him. 

[Badonde]

1 minute ago, Thomaso said:

Great! Kingsley and Halkett out! 🤷‍♂️

We’re fecked.  This is what happens when you don’t have any squad depth.  Has savage been on holiday the past month?

[Thomaso]

Just now, avhudtheteeshirt said:

How can you say that?

Up until half time we were cruising, they couldn't get near our half?

They only really got a total grip on us after the red card!!!

Exactly! Robbie got his selection spot on

[maltese jambo]

Just now, Thomaso said:

They totally dominated the midfield until the red card!

Haring was poor AGAIN when he came on.

Are you joking? Hope so, because Harings murder and has been for a while.

[Tom Hardy’s Dug]

The first half tonight is our template.

 

Fantastic football other than the final “moment”.

 

And we all know why that is - that moment always fell to Boyce. He adds something to the team but he has lost it on the key killer moments.
 

Shankland gets one of those three chances - he scores. If he got all three chances he most likely scores 2.

 

Busted flush and we just need to accept it. 8 months of pish poor form.

 

Grant then does exactly what everyone with a brain doesn’t do. Tries to force something from nothing. We didn’t need to try and buy a goal at that time in the game. He does it on a yellow card. He showed his inexperience there. As long as he learns from it then he will kick on.

 

Great support from the home fans. What could have been etc but the Conference is the best place for us to continue our development IMO.

 

We still need 3 key recruits though FFS. 
 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Tom Hardy’s Dug

[Rudi5kaceldream1ng]

2 minutes ago, GinRummy said:

Give me a chance mate. The games only been over for 45 minutes. I’ll be done moaning when I’m ready. 

We've not got much time for that mate. I'm already done swearing on the phone to my folks hahaha. 

 

We're blessed already to have a draw tomorrow to look forward to whilst we all still nurse a hangover. 

 

Good enough for roma, good enough for hearts.