DC92

The Kickback thread on him is quite something. One poster said he sounded "a bit Doudaesque" (sic). Another hoped he wasn't "another Oshaniwa".

Isma is frustrating as f**k but some of the criticism of him recently has been way over the top. Lafferty hasn't much better IMO. That said, if we get a decent fee, it's a no-brainer.

Hibs love a Hearts reject full-back. Oshaniwa next year.

To be fair, he was a passable defensive right-back when we played in the Championship. More natural at centre-back but doesn't have the physical attributes to play there.

Equally shite at both.

No he hasn't. We've got him manning the phones.

The only explanation I could think of was that we wanted him to play left-back.

Two players we got rid of three years ago. Inspiring stuff.

Very meh about the prospect of Holt coming back. Can't see how he'd fit into a 4-4-2 for a start.

We needed a winger anyway even if Walker stays. If he goes then we'll need another one or an attacking midfielder. Not that I believe O'Halloran's coming here.

Nah, he's not shite. He just has a heart the size of a pea, disappears when the going gets tough, hardly ever creates chances for others, is too slow to play on the wing and has a dodgy knee. He's a good goalscorer, although his record is a lot less impressive when you exclude the penalties. More seriously, I think he's at his best when he's basically playing as a second striker. He struggles to influence the game on the wing (which is where I think Rangers intend to play him) and that's partly why I think he'll fail. He'll end up at a Barnsley/Rotherham type club or back at Tynecastle in a couple of years.

I'd probably take that if most of it is up front. He's clearly no use to us this season and has barely kicked a ball in months. The funny thing is Rangers will think they've done us before realising he's not that good.

Red23 cruising for 23 red dots with his shite patter IMO. Here's one to get you started.

Dundee United were also bottom of the league when he took over in November so 9th place was relatively good.

When did we finish 6th? 5th in 00/01 and 01/02, 3rd in 02/03 and 03/04.

Didn't Aberdeen play without a striker against us at Pittodrie towards the end of 15/16? Club legend Abiola Dauda scored the winner.

Finished 3rd in consecutive seasons and got us into the UEFA Cup group stages. Turned Dundee United from perennial relegation strugglers into a team regularly challenging for Europe/cups. Whether he's going to turn us around now is another matter but let's not pretend he's got a poor record at this level.

4-6-0 lol. He tried to be clever because he saw Rubin Kazan get a win at the Nou Camp using it. Hadn't used it before, hasn't used it since. What an utter bore you'd have to be to be going on about it 7 years later.

Levein could have had the manager's job three years ago, which is what Budge wanted initially, and he would have appointed Daly the day after Cathro was punted if it had been up to him. He wants influence but only from a cushy background job. He'll have been talked into it on the basis that he'll have an ego-stroking job description and he'll get to step back in the summer. If the season goes very badly then that'll be very difficult.

What is all this stuff about Hearts fans defending the decision? The reaction has been, rightly, overwhelmingly negative from what I've seen. I can't see this being a success at all. He was a good manager for us and Dundee United before but the circumstances surrounding this will make it a joke appointment and I'm struggling to imagine the players responding well to it. A shite season awaits. The silver lining is that if he does a poor job it'll make it very difficult for him to step back into the DoF role and promote Daly/whoever next year. Then we might actually get a proper change.

If he's been picking the team all along, it was very clever of him to change up his team set-up each time we got a new head coach.

"SunSport understands Levein is now clear favourite with the bookies..."

I wouldn't actually mind Levein getting the job because it means we'll have ditched "the model". It sounded nice in theory; appoint talented coaches who've shown potential and allow them to learn from the Head Coach to ensure continuity when they eventually take the reins after a couple of years. "Talented coaches" are a bit thin on the ground when you limit yourself to a pool of ex-Levein players, though, and the idea of "continuity" is questionable when the next coach in line clearly has completely different ideas to his predecessor. If Levein succeeds as manager, fine. If he fails, he gets punted and we can move on.

So we're down to two candidates then. One favoured by the Director of Football, whose main motivation is to keep his "model" alive and save his own reputation, and one favoured by the Chairwoman, who probably has the best interests of the club at heart but doesn't have much of a clue about football. Just announce Daly and put us out of our misery.