VincentGuerin

Last game of the season for me. Going for pints and hopefully an entertaining game. Result, completely immaterial. Couldn't care less. Play some fringe players or kids.

Ok, we don't quite always gub you. Win for the Hibbies.

Good point. We do tend to gub you all the time.

Heard from ny (new) BIG ITK HEARTS INSIDER SOURCE this morning on this very topic. 1) As far as Hearts are aware there is currently no credible interest in our number 9. They're very aware this may change, but there's nothing rumbling on just now. 2) Club not convinced anyone will pay a fee that will make it worth selling him. 3) No sign of trouble from said no.9. Again, club are not children and are aware that may change. 4) Plan to play a different style of football next season wilth less reliance on centre forward's goals, more from midfield and wide areas. Recruitment with this in mind. Plan this season worked well, but Hearts concerned with "being worked out" by other teams next season and goals drying up. 5) Preference definitely to keep him, but prepared to sell if it suits and "comfortable" with that. Basically the picture from outside is very similar to the picture from inside. Long summer to go though.

The greatest image that exists.

At his age and with a year to go it'll be nowhere near £5m. We'd be more like £2m, I reckon. At that kind of price, I'd just keep him and let him go for f**k all the next summer. Unless it's going to be problematic to do so. Hearts will know enough about him as a character to make that call.

Motherwell. Hibs, and Aberdeen's push for Top 9 shows that they have outgrown Scottish football. They should go and play in the Bundesliga. They could relocate to Lower Sixony. What?

Hoping Celtic win due to a terrible refereeing error. Ticks all the boxes. Rangers and their abject scumbag supporters deeply upset, Celtic fans devastated that they can't moan about masons. Also, Celtic win so much that nobody is fucking arsed anymore. And, let's not lose sight of the key point, Rangers being the world's worst football club, followed by Scotland's worst human beings. Over to you, Collum.

It's both. Keith Jackson genuinely phones in.

Gary Locke's Galacticos would have finished 11th in 2013-14 if not for the points deduction. We woz robbed.

This conflict has faded into the background for me of late, to be honest. Did actually spit out a wee bit of tea a minute ago reading in the Guardian that, Hamas, the organisation behind the October 7 attack, has indignantly accused Israel of "a dangerous escalation". Whatever your view of the world, that's objectively funny.

The European comparison is silly. It's like us losing 2-1 to Celtic at full strength, then Hibs losing 5-0 to them the following week missing seven players and using that as a valid comparison. Still, we get another go. Our transfer activity in the last few years has been strange in general. Shankland and Kent the obvious stand-out successes, and I don't rate the opinion of anyone who doesn't see how good Beni is or how important he is to the team, but aside from them we've just signed generally good but not great Premiership-level players. I think Devlin and Atkinson typify this. Neither are brilliant, but both are perfectly competent and have proven to be good enough in this league to contribute to a team that's significantly better than our peers. Ideally, I'd like to see both moved on this summer, as I don't think there's evidence of progression with either, and I think from where we are now we should be looking at getting a bit more quality in. We've got a few like that. It won't all be done in one summer, but the challenge now is to gradually start to upgrade from what has been a solid base.

A sad attempt at misrepresentation. As well you know. Anyway, this has gone on long enough. You lads are having a hard time, I get it. League Cup draw must be soon. I hope you get some good trips.

Disagreeing with someone doesn't make them stupid or hopelessly deluded. We played hard games against good teams with half a team missing. How would Aberdeen do against Fiorentina with half a team missing? Anyway, we'll get another shot at it next year. Enjoy the League Cup groups.

We're in a Labour-Tories stat-swapping exercise here, but it's amusing that you seem incapable of noticing that you're doing the very same thing you accuse me of. Aberdeen won 0 games in Europe that were competitive. They performed well in some games, but they didn't do any better than Hearts did. You can argue that either way, but your argument is as easy to ridicule and pick holes in as mine, you just choose not to see that. And, yes, a cup semi final that you lose in a season where you finish in the bottom six is meaningless. Aberdeen have shown all season they can perform well against better teams. Sadly, it's been pretty much futile in every sense. The semi-final is just another example. It's a season that's left you nowhere.

These are very amusing sentences to be reading in May, it must be said.

You got the same number of points as we did, your only win was in a dead rubber, and we played the whole thing with half a team missing. If that keeps you happy, then fair play. Aberdeen played well against Celtic, but it's ultimately meaningless. The recent upturn in form has included no games against anyone higher than sixth in the league, and four out of six at home. I don't think it's really evidence of anything in relation to the rest of your season. The pressure is off and the games are meaningless. I said early in the season that the talk of Aberdeen underperforming was based on a seriouly inflated view of their squad, and I think that's been shown over the season. A lot of it is relatively easy to fix, and it shouln't be beyond them to get some centre halves in and to structure a midfield. But, we'll see. I think their position in the league is a fair reflection of how good/bad they are.

We didn't make the most of it, but I think we're also due a shot at playing in Europe without half a team missing for every game. Last season was poorly handled, but I'm not sure anyone else would have done better with the injuries we had. Hopefully next season we can have a go at it at full strength. It'll be interesting to see how we do with juggling the league stuff, but you'd hope we can put the experience to good use. I think your point about getting stuffed every week is important. We're looking to get to the stage where we can compete on both fronts, and getting ridden senseless every midweek can't not have an impact on confidence and morale for the league games, and finishing third again next year would be an important step. I'd rather we took a year or two to build towards being competitive in matches in the Europa League. We wouldn't be next season, and I think medium and long-term that would be a bad thing. But, f**k it, when the qualifier comes round we'll be dying to win.

Hearts are confirmed in 3rd spot and are guaranteed league stage European football for season 24/25. We welcome the chase. Kilmarnock have sealed a Top 5 finish and will play continental football for the first time since a 2019/20 defeat to Connah's Quay Nomads. f**k OFF. I DO THESE THINGS ONCE. Livingston are relegated.

Wroclaw is also the venue for the most famous German national team XI ever, still named after the city's previous name, The Breslau Efl (not a character from a Disney film). It's a fine city. When we reach the final, I'll avoid your hotel issues by staying in Poznan and communting in. Bilbao is acceptable as it can be reached by train. Unsure of the hotel situation. I'll start to really worry about this after we win the semi final first leg.

Wroclaw is much better, imo. Cheaper too. And I'd challenge your assertion that Dublin is easier. We can get the train to Wroclaw!

Of course. That's his job. That's why he's there. But look at our run through the winter where we basically took control of third place. Shankland's goals were important, but we were winning games and picking up points on the back of clean sheets. Miovski's goals have been less valuable to Aberdeen because they didn't keep clean sheets. For example, we won at Hibs with a late Shankland goal. But only because we had a clean sheet. We beat St Mirren at home with two Shankland goals. But also because we kept a clean sheet. Aberdeen went through the season giving away goals in those fixtures, and that's because they're a bad team. * It's Sunday night and I've got nothing to do, but I just did a count. Aberdeen have conceded one goal or fewer in 15 league games this season. Hearts have done that 27 times. This means that in more than half their league matches Aberdeen have had to score three to win. That's only been the case for Hearts seven times. If you reckon Shankland is the deciding factor in Hearts' season, you're looking in the wrong place. I can't think of many wins due to late Shankland goals. Hibs away. I think that's pretty much it. Take Shankland out the team, I'd be pretty confident of third anyway. Take Kent and Baningime out, I wouldn't be.

We wouldn't be third is a pretty big call, considering that it would assume that either we played with ten men every week or that whoever we replaced our captain (and probably biggest earner) with wouldn't score any or many goals. The real difference between Hearts and Aberdeen is that we've been better at the back and have kept significantly more clean sheets (I think 15-8). Because we're a much better team. The big difference for Hearts this season has been Frankie Kent, and Banigime being fit. Shankland banged in the goals last season too, and it didn't cut it. We actually scored a lot more last season than this. The difference is we're now much more solid. We've had players fit that were injured last season, and we've stopped losing goals from crosses all the time. The Shankland narrative misses the point with Hearts.

The only disappointment in what he said was that it sounded like we might need to wait till the season after next for liquidation rather than it being immediate. It's in the post though. And it'll be a good day.

We probably wouldn't need to better the six points. Top 24 is enough to get through to the playoff round, so gubbing two diddies of similar stature to RFS would likely get us to that. FWIW, I think Conference League next season is best for us long-term.