Widge

I think saints were happy for Kent and Rowles to have the ball tbh, the only one playing progressive passes was Kingsley on his wrong side. For the most part it was working as well, the amount of times the Hearts centrebacks looked up and had no options was quite telling. Doesn’t distract from the fact Kane couldn’t trap a bag of cement yesterday and May doesn’t pose any attacking threat any more.

Ali, he's injured right now. He was playing week in, week out in the Preston midfield when he was fit and arguably they've struggled slightly since he's been out the team. He also captained Northern Ireland earlier in the year so he's certainly having a decent career. The issue he has is that he's very unflashy in his play. If he scored goals, or was a creative force he'd get so much more hype, but he's just very very good at what he does.

Having seen it from an unbiased point of view, it’s as close to a red card as you’ll get without it actually being one of that makes sense. Rubezic is clearly going for the ball the whole time; however he’s slightly late and comes in with some amount of force which is why it’s probably borderline. Where it falls within the reckless category is probably pertinent to this. I don’t want to see football ever stop being a physical contest, but equally what Rubezic did was fundamentally endangering another player because of the force used. Whilst the ball was there to be won 100%, sometimes you just can’t be as aggressive, then it doesn’t appear he’s got less aggressive in his locker.

The change of date doesn’t bother me so I’m not affected and don’t mind it. I can totally understand why the clubs have done it though, it eases the very busy period and gives the players a little more time off over Xmas and new year to spend with their families which from a morale point of view is probably a good thing.

So I’d refrained from posting since I was trying to think the best way to describe the game and then someone nailed it, it was “Tommy Wright” in a nutshell. That is by no way a bad thing and I suspect Levien is cut from the same cloth which gives me hope this year again. To a man the team were good, there were no failures. Dan Phillips was having a shocker in the first half, almost gave away a goal at the start of the second but from that moment on he was excellent. Others have mentioned Matt Smith, that was a really assured and promising performance, his ability on the halftime is going to be a real asset. The three centrebacks didn’t put s foot wrong and the fact we didn’t even know Simon Murray was playing was testament to that. Special mention to Graham Carey who despite going through a horrible situation at home has somehow managed to improve his performances and up his levels, which is a show of true mental strength and I know the fans and the club will all be behind him and I think he knows that. As for County, that was rudderless. You’re playing a poor team with a shaky defence and it’s long ball stuff 95% of the time and the other 5% was get it to Dhanda and hope he can curl a cross into the box from the left hand side. Dont get me wrong, that first half of football would get football itself stopped, but we thoroughly deserved our win from the second half with the chances created alone.

Aye the narrative that he once played without a striker and that defines him as a manager is mental. Fucking hell, we basically played with no striker for an entire season under McInnes yet he’s still highly thought of amongst saints fans. I just think that there’s still a general lack of support and empathy around the club right now that supporters are just gonna be more negative that is actually warranted.

Aye he lives in Edinburgh, so commuting wouldn't be an issue since it's about 15/20 mins more to Perth at most.

I dunno, we're still able to offer more than Livi and I'd wager quite a bit. It's not that Martindale wants to sign all these unknown journeymen I don't think he just doesn't have a choice. We now he wanted to sign the likes of Robbie Deas, but couldn't get close at all, neither did saints in the end, but we had more of a shot for sure. I'd take Martindale for sure, not just cause I see him a couple of times a week where I work and he does seem like a properly nice guy. I think he's also up there with the best man managers in the league and as others have said, would be allowed time even if we were relegated to sort the shit show out.

Think I said it last time as well, but I’d be looking at Rhys McCabe. I think we know we’re going down already, so may as well bring in someone young with ideas and who plays attacking football. Not sure he’s ready to hang up his boots just yet though so probably the only issue.

Oh she has two eyes, not that you'd ever guess from the amount of times she bashes her head on stuff!

No, you’re not going out for the third time today in the howling wind. No, you’re not getting more food and no I do not want to join your cult of the void!

Did show that Tommy Wright could spot a player when he had to!

Wait, wait, you’re not talking about Carey’s one where he shoulders it out of play? Clearly well within the rules of the game?

Go on, try and be fucking positive for once.....dare you?

So what have we learnt from this weekend - Max is finally starting to show why he's highly rated in a position that doesn't hamper him out wide and hopefully he kicks on. Sven is the best midfielder we have and allows the team to actually try and play football, he's as close a McCann replacement as we've ever found based on his ability to cover the entire midfield and win the ball back. Costelloe is a nuisance, but realistically isn't a starting striker now we've got players back. Jephcott is finally getting chances and looking like scoring (albeit we need to do more as a team). We desperately need to find something other than Carey on the left, as he will eventually cost us defensively. MacPherson should be 6th choice midfielder going forward. Dare I say that if we're now playing a back 3, McGowan should be back in the squad as RCB was his best position.

The implication of the word "cost" is that it's made a mistake. In this match there was zero errors with the system and therefore the result was the correct one based on the application of the games rules. So yeah, VAR didn't cost Aberdeen anything in the match.

Same here, was sure that it wouldn’t be overturned. Now the question remains, will these decisions even themselves out for us now as fans who benefit always claim. Absolutely not, but if I see Andrew Dallas on VAR this weekend, then we’ve got issues.

I mean he’ll be doing well when he’s not on the pitch. Also he’s 30, if that’s geriatric then I’m fucked!

Sven got his head on quite a bit against Hibs.

I would agree to an extent; however it's worked for Motherwell this season, as the player is good enough and has embraced it. The difference being he's slotted into a stable side with a clear way of playing, whereas we're the polar opposite.

You'll not be successful, not because that's the right decision, but rather they're incompetent. You'd have thought a pre-season of learning the rules and how to utilise VAR correctly would have helped the referees, but no if anything they're getting worse.

I mean I know that a number of the players hire their own fitness guys, so......?

I don't think so. Compare Jephcott to someone like Sven who's not played a competitive match in almost 4 months and was without a club for that entire period, yet he's come in straight away played 90 minutes and genuinely looked like he could play another 90. Now I know that people are physically different and clearly Jephcott isn't naturally fit, but for a professional footballer to have been training for 3 months now and not look like he's improving is a worry. Ok it's a new country, a new place of work and new people around him, but attitude and application still applies.

I think others have touched on it, the fact that a 3-5-2 genuinely looks like the best option with the personnel available is quite funny. Let Wright and Gallacher play at wing back, your midfield 3 picks itself and you’d actually have 2 strikers on the pitch for it. I worry MacLean will see going to that shape a failure to change things, but the reality is, it was never the shape that was the issue under Davidson, rather the manner he wanted it to be played. A midfield of Sven, Phillips and Smith on paper is a good one. Sven appears very good at winning the ball back and covering, Phillips was actually pretty decent against Hibs and box to box he can cause issues, what I think we lacked yesterday was a creative player. I’d hope that’s Smith, let’s face it we all know MacPherson isn’t it and why he played yesterday I don’t know, but Smith appears on the limited viewings far better and keeping the ball and playing decisive passes.

Lots of excitement for this one I take it? Could be quite a pivotal game for saints, almost a full squad to chose from, starting to show maybe just a few little signs we're getting better (albeit not huge) and hopefully a team that's starting to gel a little. Hibs with their new manager and a first home game for him, so decent crowd perhaps for the home team?