Terrible

[stirlo]

3 hours ago, Captain Sausage said:

It’s just unacceptable that mid-20s professional athletes are unable to play 2 games a week. 
 

Forget the Naismith preseason shambles, where is the professionalism. Plenty lads at junior level at least put in the effort to be fit enough to handle a couple of games a week. 
 

The players should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. 
 

This isn’t on Critchley. We’ve seen what he wants from the team. It’s on the players. 

 

The issue is very much the pre-season shambles rather than lack of fitness or professionalism. The fact is we left ourselves in a situation where we only have one player capable of regularly putting the ball in the back of the net - and his goals have dried up. I said when Critchley came in that it will be very difficult for him to change things until January unless Shankland starts scoring again. The incompetence that we witnessed over the summer is off the scale. I keep asking myself how on earth have we left ourselves in this predicament?

[soonbe110]

42 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

If st Mirren or Omonia for that matter had scored we would’ve seen the same mental fragility. We fold like a deck of cards when we concede a goal. 

You weren’t at ER? 

[tartofmidlothian]

2 minutes ago, soonbe110 said:

You weren’t at ER? 

 

We responded well to going behind against County and at Aberdeen too. Something just seemed to go in the players last night, hopefully we can recover quickly.

[soonbe110]

Just now, tartofmidlothian said:

 

We responded well to going behind against County and at Aberdeen too. Something just seemed to go in the players last night, hopefully we can recover quickly.

👍

[Jamhammer]

10 hours ago, vegas-voss said:

He isn't and you can see improvement but short comings are still there with what you have described.

On a positive note his post match presser said exactly what I was thinking

They knew what to expect but didn’t do what they’d practiced 

We had plenty of time to score again but didn’t look like doing so

He knows what needs to be done

I’d imagine training will be interesting this week 

 

[Ricardo Quaresma]

11 hours ago, Dana Scully said:

Won 4-0 vs St Mirren and 2-0 vs Omonia with same approach. That isn’t the problem.

 

This is true

[Ricardo Quaresma]

11 hours ago, Fraggle said:

This stems back to the utterly appalling, and amateur pre-season. 

 

I think some of it goes further back than that...

[Ricardo Quaresma]

11 hours ago, Yoda said:

100%.  He needs to start clearing out the dross, starting in January.

 

Something Naismith was trying to do; think he might have went over budget, though

 

Nae bungs, tae, work wi' the peeps sittin' in the ejector seats

 

Who did SN stop playing much, if at all?

[Fraggle]

12 minutes ago, Ricardo Quaresma said:

 

I think some of it goes further back than that...

How far back do reckon?

[Ricardo Quaresma]

Just now, Fraggle said:

How far back do reckon?

 

RN, at least

[Shanks]

We are a team full of wee wimps, even kent was getting ragdolled about the place.  
 

The truth is we have been utter shite for years with only shanklands goals papering over the cracks.  Now his goals have dried up (for whatever reason) it exposes just how bad we are.  
 

Shankland has carried this entire club - management and players for a long time now, no wonder he cant be arsed!

[Ricardo Quaresma]

11 hours ago, Famous 1874 said:

I’d like to see Critchley not include the likes of Grant, McKay and Boyce in the matchday squad. Replace them with Tait, Salazar and Musa. 
 

Hopefultl Beni is back so Devlin can be benched. Also start Wilson over Vargas. 
 

Desperately need a right back in January. 
 

The condition of Shankland is extremely worrying too. 

 

Can't argue with that; maybe  start Musa and bring Wilson on, initially at least

 

But that's it

[vegas-voss]

4 minutes ago, Shanks said:

We are a team full of wee wimps, even kent was getting ragdolled about the place.  
 

The truth is we have been utter shite for years with only shanklands goals papering over the cracks.  Now his goals have dried up (for whatever reason) it exposes just how bad we are.  
 

Shankland has carried this entire club - management and players for a long time now, no wonder he cant be arsed!

I thought Kent was poor last night.I was watching Rowles a lot as so many people says he covers so much and he does.He is a better all round player than Kent imo but the majority won't agree with that.I still like Kent but he is nowhere near a Halkett before his injury.

[Ricardo Quaresma]

11 hours ago, Japan Jambo said:

Need to stop relying on Beni then, he's good but he sure as shit isn't reliable. Surely we've learned this by now?

 

We need someone to rotate with Boateng and Devlin, that's either Tait, that wasn't there, because there's people on the bench that won't be coming on

 

Or, put Kingsley in LCM; I reckon he'd be better than Cochrane was there

 

You need players that can win the ball, not shepherd it on to the next oppo player

 

We've got the players we've got; that Midfield is empty, it's like soup through a fork

 

-

Edited October 31, 2024 by Ricardo Quaresma

[tartofmidlothian]

1 minute ago, vegas-voss said:

I thought Kent was poor last night.I was watching Rowles a lot as so many people says he covers so much and he does.He is a better all round player than Kent imo but the majority won't agree with that.I still like Kent but he is nowhere near a Halkett before his injury.

 

I think you're right.

[gorgieheart]

Grant... brings nothing to the team when he comes on

Boyce....great mind, but legs gone

Beni...either ill or injured for majority of the season

Barry... great player on his day...but not had His Day for a long time

Devlin...runs....passes backwards...runs ..passes sideways....runs...gets booked...runs

Kent...magic hat is in the bin.... big lad, but absolutely no physicality

 

Get Halkett starting , get the bench filled with hungry players who want to play, not just sit and file their nails

 

if we are in a scrap...none of the above would fill me with confidence that they have the stomach for it

 

[A_A wehatethehibs]

2 hours ago, soonbe110 said:

You weren’t at ER? 

 

2 hours ago, tartofmidlothian said:

 

We responded well to going behind against County and at Aberdeen too. Something just seemed to go in the players last night, hopefully we can recover quickly.

What about Dundee, Falkirk, Plzen twice, Motherwell, DUFC, away at st Mirren, did we respond well to going down in those games? And it goes away back to March April last season as well. Appreciate you’re both trying to put a brave face on it, buf in the past 6 months a pattern of soft mentality when a goal is conceded has emerged. When we concede the heads go down far too often and it is our biggest issue. It’s a problem of leadership  
 

 

Edited October 31, 2024 by A_A wehatethehibs

[HopeDiouf]

1 minute ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

 

What about Dundee, Falkirk, Plzen twice, Motherwell, DUFC, away at st Mirren, did we respond well to going down in those games? And it goes away back to March April last season as well. Appreciate you’re both trying to put a brave face on it, buf in the past 6 months a pattern of soft mentality when a goal is conceded has emerged. When we concede the heads go down far too often and it is our biggest issue. It’s a problem of leadership  
 

 

Along with a habit of conceding soft goals,  Not a good combination.

[Nerja Jambo]

2 hours ago, stirlo said:

 

The issue is very much the pre-season shambles rather than lack of fitness or professionalism. The fact is we left ourselves in a situation where we only have one player capable of regularly putting the ball in the back of the net - and his goals have dried up. I said when Critchley came in that it will be very difficult for him to change things until January unless Shankland starts scoring again. The incompetence that we witnessed over the summer is off the scale. I keep asking myself how on earth have we left ourselves in this predicament?

I think it's stamina and fitness, not a lack of professionalism. They just don't have the stamina and fitness to play a high tempo game twice a week. That as you say comes back to the pre-season shambles which no one at the club seemed to notice and some on here didn't think was a problem. It was the same when Stendal arrived. One of the first things he criticised was the level of fitness. It'll be interesting to see the take both the new guy and Critchley have on that as well. When we beat St Mirren and Omonia the professionalism was there, but they ran out of steam second half. That should not happen. Naismith has left us in a shocking state and how the board thought a rookie coach with 9 months experience in the Lowland League could cope with a club the size of ours when things went wrong is beyond belief.

[boag1874]

2 hours ago, soonbe110 said:

You weren’t at ER? 

TBF Hibs are even more mentally fragile than us

[stirlo]

1 minute ago, Nerja Jambo said:

I think it's stamina and fitness, not a lack of professionalism. They just don't have the stamina and fitness to play a high tempo game twice a week. That as you say comes back to the pre-season shambles which no one at the club seemed to notice and some on here didn't think was a problem. It was the same when Stendal arrived. One of the first things he criticised was the level of fitness. It'll be interesting to see the take both the new guy and Critchley have on that as well. When we beat St Mirren and Omonia the professionalism was there, but they ran out of steam second half. That should not happen. Naismith has left us in a shocking state and how the board thought a rookie coach with 9 months experience in the Lowland League could cope with a club the size of ours when things went wrong is beyond belief.

 

I take the point that we're playing a lot of games just now, but the issue last night for me was not a lack of energy. It was simply that when Killie went ahead they just shut up shop and we had absolutely no idea about how to break them down.

 

Particularly when it gets into the last 10-15 minutes, you need to have the option of going route 1, but we don't have that option just now as apart from Shankland we have no-one we can stick up front. I said a few weeks ago that the club should be looking for a free agent with some physical presence who they can bring on to noise up defences when we're chasing a game like last night. It doesn't matter if they're not a particularly good footballer - we're in a desperate situation just now.

 

It was really noticeable that against Ross County, the equaliser came from Craig Gordon coming up for a corner in stoppage time. His presence in the penalty area suddenly caused chaos in the Ross County defence - which had been quite comfortable up to that point. 

 

It's evident that we're in a terrible mess just now, but in practical terms the best we can do IMO is to play percentage football to try and get a few points on the board between now and January.

[NextGenerationJambo]

A lot has been said about the lack of pace in this hearts squad, which is certainly true. The killer for me however, is the speed of thought. The overall football IQ of our players is frightening low. It's genuinely amateur stuff at times. We constantly begrudge having to break down teams sitting in against us, yet milk turns quicker than we counter attack. Every single opportunity we have to catch the opposition off guard or out of position, someone takes the safe option, calms the game down, resets and we are back to having to beat 11 men again. (Notice the one occasion where we actually acted instinctively and with urgency, we scored... who'd have guessed it?) 

 

Not just that though. How many times do you see hearts players rattle a cross off of a guys shins because he's standing 3 yards away from them? As if there was ever going to be any other outcome in that situation. These are professional footballers we are talking about. They play football 4/5 times a week, and get paid handsomely to do it, but they somehow expect the ball to magically teleport through opposition players, half the time they don't even have a look to see where our players are positioned before smashing it off the opposition at point blank range. 

 

How many of our guys know their next pass before they get the ball? How many of them are aware of how much space they have in each direction before receiving the ball? How many do you see making the same runs and challenging for the same ball? How many times is the obvious pass to progress us not taken? How many times do we do a nice bit of work to break the lines only for someone to kill it dead by taking the wrong option or taking far too long on the ball? Killie have three massive CB's and were happy to defend crossballs all day. At corners they were never really threatened, and nearly every one we had a 2 on 1 situation near the kicker but decided to lump it in and hope for the best despite seeing it repeatedly not work. 

 

The players are clearly lacking in confidence and many are also lacking in ability, but feck me we need some football brains in that team. 

Edited October 31, 2024 by NextGenerationJambo

[boag1874]

2 hours ago, Jamhammer said:

On a positive note his post match presser said exactly what I was thinking

They knew what to expect but didn’t do what they’d practiced 

We had plenty of time to score again but didn’t look like doing so

He knows what needs to be done

I’d imagine training will be interesting this week 

 

The issue is he's once again not going to get much time to train. We're currently playing every 3 days & the day after a match will be recovery, so we're only really getting one day to fully prepare for games in between, that's not a lot of time to really work on things. After Saturday we get a wee bit longer but then we're coming into our hardest run of fixtures of the season.

[tartofmidlothian]

36 minutes ago, A_A wehatethehibs said:

 

What about Dundee, Falkirk, Plzen twice, Motherwell, DUFC, away at st Mirren, did we respond well to going down in those games? And it goes away back to March April last season as well. Appreciate you’re both trying to put a brave face on it, buf in the past 6 months a pattern of soft mentality when a goal is conceded has emerged. When we concede the heads go down far too often and it is our biggest issue. It’s a problem of leadership  
 

 

 

I'm only talking about since Naismith left. You're right though, it's a longer term problem if we take changing managers out of the equation.

[tartofmidlothian]

13 minutes ago, NextGenerationJambo said:

A lot has been said about the lack of pace in this hearts squad, which is certainly true. The killer for me however, is the speed of thought. The overall football IQ of our players is frightening low. It's genuinely amateur stuff at times. We constantly begrudge having to break down teams sitting in against us, yet milk turns quicker than we counter attack. Every single opportunity we have to catch the opposition off guard or out of position, someone takes the safe option, calms the game down, resets and we are back to having to beat 11 men again. (Notice the one occasion where we actually acted instinctively and with urgency, we scored... who'd have guessed it?) 

 

Not just that though. How many times do you see hearts players rattle a cross off of a guys shins because he's standing 3 yards away from them? As if there was ever going to be any other outcome in that situation. These are professional footballers we are talking about. They play football 4/5 times a week, and get paid handsomely to do it, but they somehow expect the ball to magically teleport through opposition players, half the time they don't even have a look to see where our players are positioned before smashing it off the opposition at point blank range. 

 

How many of our guys know their next pass before they get the ball? How many of them are aware of how much space they have in each direction before receiving the ball? How many do you see making the same runs and challenging for the same ball? How many times is the obvious pass to progress us not taken? How many times do we do a nice bit of work to break the lines only for someone to kill it dead by taking the wrong option or taking far too long on the ball? Killie have three massive CB's and were happy to defend crossballs all day. At corners they were never really threatened, and nearly every one we had a 2 on 1 situation near the kicker but decided to lump it in and hope for the best despite seeing it repeatedly not work. 

 

The players are clearly lacking in confidence and many are also lacking in ability, but feck me we need some football brains in that team. 

 

I get the impression Critchley's working on this, to the extent it was nowhere to be seen in the first half last night, our passing was quick and often effective. We shat the bed and reverted to type after their second went in though.

[NextGenerationJambo]

Just now, tartofmidlothian said:

 

I get the impression Critchley's working on this, to the extent it was nowhere to be seen in the first half last night, our passing was quick and often effective. We shat the bed and reverted to type after their second went in though.

I completely agree. For what it's worth I don't blame Critch at all for last night. He is not a miracle worker and won't fix things overnight, particularly when his time on the grass with the team will be limited just now. It's poor recruitment and coaching prior to him coming in that has truly done the damage. 

[A_A wehatethehibs]

4 minutes ago, tartofmidlothian said:

 

I'm only talking about since Naismith left. You're right though, it's a longer term problem if we take changing managers out of the equation.

it’s the same players. Very tough for critchley. P3 W1 D1 L1 I say he will be doing well if he can maintain that every 3 games till Jan 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

6 hours ago, footballingarts said:

I'd agree with you if we were  near the end of the season or playing our last game in CL (so too many weeks with 2 matches) - but far too early in the season for fatigue to be the reason. They should have been motivated after the result V Hibs and wins v st mirren and Omnoia.....but lost a couple of goals and it all went downhill v killie. Maybe need a mental coach as well as fitba coach.

Compare with comeback wins v dundee last season

 

It doesn't take until the end of the season to get tired, particularly if the training regimen of the prior staff left fitness levels below where they should be.

 

To be clear though I'm putting this on Critchley. It sure looked to me like we needed fresh legs at the half or at least soon thereafter.

[HopeDiouf]

2 minutes ago, Watt-Zeefuik said:

 

It doesn't take until the end of the season to get tired, particularly if the training regimen of the prior staff left fitness levels below where they should be.

 

To be clear though I'm putting this on Critchley. It sure looked to me like we needed fresh legs at the half or at least soon thereafter.

Not Critchleys fault our 2 centre halves gifted them 2 goals.  We win that game 9/10 otherwise.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

5 minutes ago, HopeDiouf said:

Not Critchleys fault our 2 centre halves gifted them 2 goals.  We win that game 9/10 otherwise.

 

Our CHs looked knackered and Kingsley and Halkett are right there on the bench.

[HopeDiouf]

1 minute ago, Watt-Zeefuik said:

 

Our CHs looked knackered and Kingsley and Halkett are right there on the bench.

Not convinced either of them are any sort of answer. Guess we might find out on Saturday.  Sadly think Rowles and Kent are the best we have, and they have a nasty habit of gifting goals to the opposition.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

1 hour ago, HopeDiouf said:

Not convinced either of them are any sort of answer. Guess we might find out on Saturday.  Sadly think Rowles and Kent are the best we have, and they have a nasty habit of gifting goals to the opposition.

They're the best we have, but they're not at their best if they play every game during this 7 games in 3 weeks stretch.

 

I think Kingsley could have done fine on the left against Killie and Halkett could have subbed in for Kent at 60'.

[HopeDiouf]

Just now, Watt-Zeefuik said:

They're the best we have, but they're not at their best if they play every game during this 7 games in 3 weeks stretch.

 

I think Kingsley could have done fine on the left against Killie and Halkett could have subbed in for Kent at 60'.

Was just thinking to myself, how bad can Lewis Neilson actually be and could we perhaps recall him in January.  But looking at league table, St Johnstone are one of the few teams with a worse defence than us.

[soonbe110]

3 hours ago, Nerja Jambo said:

I think it's stamina and fitness, not a lack of professionalism. They just don't have the stamina and fitness to play a high tempo game twice a week. That as you say comes back to the pre-season shambles which no one at the club seemed to notice and some on here didn't think was a problem. It was the same when Stendal arrived. One of the first things he criticised was the level of fitness. It'll be interesting to see the take both the new guy and Critchley have on that as well. When we beat St Mirren and Omonia the professionalism was there, but they ran out of steam second half. That should not happen. Naismith has left us in a shocking state and how the board thought a rookie coach with 9 months experience in the Lowland League could cope with a club the size of ours when things went wrong is beyond belief.

Don’t think Naismith intended them to play high tempo twice a week. He was all for the slow deliberate build up of play from the back thinking he was the Scottish Pep.  Same as last season. It’s  really no surprise that our players are not at a fitness level to play at a much higher tempo. 

[soonbe110]

3 hours ago, boag1874 said:

TBF Hibs are even more mentally fragile than us

👍good point

[soonbe110]

3 hours ago, stirlo said:

 

I take the point that we're playing a lot of games just now, but the issue last night for me was not a lack of energy. It was simply that when Killie went ahead they just shut up shop and we had absolutely no idea about how to break them down.

 

Particularly when it gets into the last 10-15 minutes, you need to have the option of going route 1, but we don't have that option just now as apart from Shankland we have no-one we can stick up front. I said a few weeks ago that the club should be looking for a free agent with some physical presence who they can bring on to noise up defences when we're chasing a game like last night. It doesn't matter if they're not a particularly good footballer - we're in a desperate situation just now.

 

It was really noticeable that against Ross County, the equaliser came from Craig Gordon coming up for a corner in stoppage time. His presence in the penalty area suddenly caused chaos in the Ross County defence - which had been quite comfortable up to that point. 

 

It's evident that we're in a terrible mess just now, but in practical terms the best we can do IMO is to play percentage football to try and get a few points on the board between now and January.

It would almost have been worth trying Halkett in there for last 10 mins last night. At least we would have had a presence in their box. 

[kingantti1874]

6 minutes ago, HopeDiouf said:

Was just thinking to myself, how bad can Lewis Neilson actually be and could we perhaps recall him in January.  But looking at league table, St Johnstone are one of the few teams with a worse defence than us.

no man, as a defender he’s absolutely shocking

[soonbe110]

3 hours ago, boag1874 said:

The issue is he's once again not going to get much time to train. We're currently playing every 3 days & the day after a match will be recovery, so we're only really getting one day to fully prepare for games in between, that's not a lot of time to really work on things. After Saturday we get a wee bit longer but then we're coming into our hardest run of fixtures of the season.

Two weeks spare coming up on Nov 10 so should see an improvement for Celtic game. 

[stirlo]

1 minute ago, soonbe110 said:

It would almost have been worth trying Halkett in there for last 10 mins last night. At least we would have had a presence in their box. 

 

Yes - definitely would be worth a try in the last 10 minutes. It's a sad state of affairs but in the current squad Halkett is easily our biggest threat from set pieces into the box.

[HopeDiouf]

1 minute ago, kingantti1874 said:

no man, as a defender he’s absolutely shocking

I know, just desperately trying to think what we can do.  We know Rowles and Kent ain't the answer.  And I don't think Halkett is the answer either.

Edited October 31, 2024 by HopeDiouf

[soonbe110]

1 hour ago, HopeDiouf said:

Not convinced either of them are any sort of answer. Guess we might find out on Saturday.  Sadly think Rowles and Kent are the best we have, and they have a nasty habit of gifting goals to the opposition.

St Johnstone’s strikers are rapid.  Halkett and Kingsley might struggle. Could see a back three on Saturday with only one holding midfielder. 

[Nerja Jambo]

1 minute ago, soonbe110 said:

Don’t think Naismith intended them to play high tempo twice a week. He was all for the slow deliberate build up of play from the back thinking he was the Scottish Pep.  Same as last season. It’s  really no surprise that our players are not at a fitness level to play at a much higher tempo. 

Players should be fit enough to play however required twice a week, not an entire season, but up to now, yes. If they are only trained to certain level so that they can play a certain way and therefor unable to go up a level when required, then that is very amateurish approach from Naismith. The mess he has left us in is shocking, but I have 100% faith in Critchley to turn things round through time. Struggle on and don't drift until January, sign 2 or 3 attackers as required and then next season we really see things starting to develop. A number of players leaving, a smaller squad and fewer but higher quality signings. It all takes time. 

[soonbe110]

Just now, Nerja Jambo said:

Players should be fit enough to play however required twice a week, not an entire season, but up to now, yes. If they are only trained to certain level so that they can play a certain way and therefor unable to go up a level when required, then that is very amateurish approach from Naismith. The mess he has left us in is shocking, but I have 100% faith in Critchley to turn things round through time. Struggle on and don't drift until January, sign 2 or 3 attackers as required and then next season we really see things starting to develop. A number of players leaving, a smaller squad and fewer but higher quality signings. It all takes time. 

Indeed 

[Nerja Jambo]

10 minutes ago, soonbe110 said:

It would almost have been worth trying Halkett in there for last 10 mins last night. At least we would have had a presence in their box. 

That's a good point considering Halkett started with Rangers as a striker. Maybe Critchley doesn't know that and could utilise him at least until January. He could at least knock defenders about creating more space for others. 

Edited October 31, 2024 by Nerja Jambo

[Fraggle]

7 hours ago, Nerja Jambo said:

I think it's stamina and fitness, not a lack of professionalism. They just don't have the stamina and fitness to play a high tempo game twice a week. That as you say comes back to the pre-season shambles which no one at the club seemed to notice and some on here didn't think was a problem. It was the same when Stendal arrived. One of the first things he criticised was the level of fitness. It'll be interesting to see the take both the new guy and Critchley have on that as well. When we beat St Mirren and Omonia the professionalism was there, but they ran out of steam second half. That should not happen. Naismith has left us in a shocking state and how the board thought a rookie coach with 9 months experience in the Lowland League could cope with a club the size of ours when things went wrong is beyond belief.

This in bucket loads. Our fitness levels have been utterly terrible for a good number of years.

[Fraggle]

4 hours ago, Nerja Jambo said:

That's a good point considering Halkett started with Rangers as a striker. Maybe Critchley doesn't know that and could utilise him at least until January. He could at least knock defenders about creating more space for others. 

Would also get him some match fitness without being exposed at the back!

 

Back to original Levein days with big Moose upfront, even though he was a defender.

Edited October 31, 2024 by Fraggle

[longmalx]

If we signed a wide player with pace and a lump (eg Vassell style) then the rest of the team would be helped massively by having different options. Yesterday was perfect for someone to do the physical battles so others can concentrate on other things.

[buzzbomb1958]

21 hours ago, bb8 said:

I think Critchley will get his jotters before the end of the season. If that’s the best we’ve got to offer under him he’s done already.

What a load of shit He has walked into a squad of whom half should be nowhere near Hearts they are Championship players at best , also unfit and clueless but the blame for this clusterfeck is on the Board and Naiclue they have let outside business take over from the football side and that is unforgivable. This manager deserves our backing and I have no doubt most of these wasters will never pull hearts jersey on after this season

[Nerja Jambo]

2 hours ago, Fraggle said:

Would also get him some match fitness without being exposed at the back!

 

Back to original Levein days with big Moose upfront, even though he was a defender.

We do not have that many options and one thing about Halkett is he can handle himself. I'd even consider playing Wilson alongside on occasion.

[stirlo]

2 hours ago, Fraggle said:

Would also get him some match fitness without being exposed at the back!

 

Back to original Levein days with big Moose upfront, even though he was a defender.

 

Yes - Moose was such an asset when we were chasing a game late on. In a situation like last night's game you need someone who can unsettle a defence and draw defenders out of position - Halkett would definitely be worth a try up front for the last 10-15 minutes of games like last night when we need to go more direct.