VincentGuerin

It's a bit student journalismy. I've not heard anyone I'd normally listen to react with anything other than positivity to the appointment. So, who are the folk this article is railing against? And some of the points are quite weak. Cifuentes, for example, "turning around" QPR's form would be challenged by a lot of QPR fans. They remain a very streaky team, as they were before he went there, and they remain at very real risk of relegation. Stendel, although I don't hold him responsible for it, relegated Hearts. And that's before we encounter the issue of whether Jim Goodwin is Scottish. Not great writing, imo. And I'm not sure what made this a necessary article.

Aberdeen are going into this lower than a snake's belly. Not so much out of form as just plain shite, fans can't be arsed, nobody thinks they've got a prayer. Rangers are struggling, Hearts are having a good season, we're taking a big support, people are enthusiastic. So, the only possible outcome is Aberdeen beating Celtic 1-0 while we lose by 4 or 5 to the sticky buns.

I don't believe either of those sides have their own end at Hampden, or that their teams essentially have their home changing area there. Of course that's relevant. It's technically neutral, but the way the OF are treated at Hampden stretches that definition to its very limits. There's absolutely no justification for it. I heard some Police rep on the radio once talking about how it was necessary so that the fans could enter the stadium safely. You see, asking Rangers and Celtic fans to negotiate different ends of the same stadium on different visits is utterly impossible, but asking Hearts fans to do the same if we win our semi and play Celtic in the final (or probably even Aberdeen) is absolutely fine. It's ridiculous.

I can't say I think Hearts are in any way favourites here, but that seems a very generous price. Number 9 seems to be fit and well as far as I know.

FTFY

Club Twitter saying more than 19,000 in the press conference tweet. Hearts are basically the biggest football club in the world.

There isn't really an alternative to Hampden that makes any sense. It's not perfect, but it's hard to justify a move anywhere else.

Aye. But the biger clubs know that they don't really need to make meaningful concessions. What the f**k are Port Vale going to do about it? Baw is burst.

There'll be a few more bumps in the road like this as fitba finds its new world. Next stop teams in Europe not playing in the League Cup, and then eventually that comp will just get binned. You simply can't support the current list of competitions while the elite level of the game expands at the rate it is. More European fixtures, the Nations League, summer tours, winter tours, Club World Cup, bigger international tournaments. Eventually something has to go, and that will be dictated by the clubs with money. There's an echo-chamber at work here as well. A lot of my mates support lower league English sides, and speaking to them you'd think the entire nation was outraged about this. But fans of the bigger clubs and your classic Soccer AM fan types generally don't give a f**k what happens down the pyramid. It's completely removed from their experience of fitba. I can see the argument both ways. As a paying fan, I'm not delighted at the prospect of paying £30 to see a cup tie then be asked to pay the same again because it was a draw. But the funding issue for clubs down the level is real. The obvious answer to this is genuinely better general distribution of football's money, but this will not happen. We're reaching the point where different levels of football club just need to go their separate ways and stop this farce of pretending it's all one big system. It isn't, and the pretence does nobody any good.

Me and the missus were visiting my mum a while back and the missus dropped in a "Oh, f**k off", when she ran into trouble trying to use an app to book tickets for something. IN MY MUM'S KITCHEN! I don't think I've ever shot her such a look! Disgraceful behaviour.

This all depends on how folk think their team will do. Aberdeen fans think they'll get pumped, so they won't turn up. In your hypothetical situation of Hearts playing a semi at Pittodrie, it would likewise depend entirely on how we expected to do. Against the Old Firm in poor form? Shite turnout. Against Hibs in good form, we'd fill Pittodrie. Obviously, factor in kick-off times etc. It's basically as simple as that with Scottish attendances.

Good man. A couple of my mates were displaying fear and moral weakness in the face of the vile enemy, but have discovered their fortitude at the last minute and will also be joining the throng. I reckon we'll see a few more last-minute-ers. A couple of wins recently hasn't hurt, not to mention Rangers' wobbles.

Hard to say. The system seems to be spitting up the odd seat here and there. It seems (from mates of mine who can be fucked counting this stuff) that there are about 180 left on sale, but I think there's possibly 2,000ish that haven't been put up for sale. Seems likely we'll land around 19,000, possibly a bit above. Compares favourably with semi attendances against the OF, but less than we sold for the game with Hibs. By quite a bit. Prerty sure that was 23,000. We're basically taking a home crowd.

Just saw this. Exact same here. I'm almost 40 and I'd sooner die than swear in front of my mum. Find it really, really weird when folk swear around their kids or tolerate their kids swearing at them. Always thought it's just one of these boundaries.

It's a great thing they've done. Fantastic work. Looks like 18,500-19,000ish sold, which justifies the 50/50 split, imo.

I mind when VAR came in having a discussion with some mates about how Boyle was now basically fucked as a huge part of his game would go out the window with VAR. Loads of players dive and cheat, but he's just comical with it. I think that's been shown to be largely correct. He's a decent Premiership player. Nothing more. f**k knows what Hibs are paying him, but I hope it's a fortune.

Naismith should have gone further, imo. Just baws out, "this lot are fucking pish and we're going to pump them".

I think we're maybe getting Rangers a game too late. These Old Firm bad runs rarely last very long, and I think playing at Hampden will suit them much more than playing at Dens or Dingwall. The break from playing league games will probably be welcome for their players. Hoping we make a better game of it than the League Cup semi, when we were far too timid and basically never showed up. Going in with serenely low expectations.

Aye, just a 40-year blip, which followed a 30-year blip. The norm.

I was a teenager when Vlad turned up at Hearts. My view on the world is very different now. It's also a very different situation. He was a dodgy geezer rather than the issue of what Hibs have entered into. And you actually touch on an interesting point there. Hearts had no choice. We were fucked, basically. Hibs have entered into this with no real need to do so. Anyway. All been gone over before.

If Hearts enter into a deal like Hibs have, I'll honestly never be back.

Outlined at length why previously. I find it equally baffling that so many supporters are happy to be cavalier with the future of their club. Similar to people who aren't bothered about Livingston finding it strange that I object to them. Governance of football matters. Scottish football has come through all kinds of problems relating to how our clubs have been run over the years, and I think this is a potentially reckless move, and potentially a very difficult to solve problem for the future.

Media reporting at the time of the Foley deal said the following. "The SFA’s articles on dual interest state that nobody who is involved in the management or administration of a club, or has any power to manage or influence the management or administration of a club should be able to do so for another club." I'm not down with the details here. Did the SFA change that section of the articles, or are Hibs now just quite clearly flaunting the rules? If we're going to go down the road of allowing this kind of thing, then it needs to be codified rather than it now just becoming acceptable for clubs to pick and choose which rules of the governance of our game they follow. ETA: I see the deal included the following: This approval has been granted subject to written undertakings, signed by the club, which among other commitments ensure: Shareholding from the interested party, Black Knight Football and Entertainment [BKFE], does not exceed 29.99%. That the agreement with the interested party does not preclude the club from participating in any UEFA competition it qualifies for due to BKFE’s interest in any other clubs. So, basically it's option B now. The dual interest section is essentially a dead duck. A concerning development.

Hearts are playing well, winning games, scoring goals. Rangers are in a slump and drowning in negativity. Some laugh when we're 2-0 down in ten minutes on Sunday.

He knows the players better than we do. He's got a few minutes to decide what to say and has decided that he reckons the players need to hear a bit of positivity. I don't think at this stage it really matters to him how it comes across to the fans. There's hardly any of the season left and what he needs is his players to loosen up a bit. I don't think the players are going to suddenly be walking on air after what he said, but it's more about avoiding the the inevitable fuss if he criticises them. That just piles pressure on. It' damage control. Of course they know it's a bad night. They don't need their manager out there telling everyone how bad. As for talking about how he's going to fix it, I don't really see what that could mean practically. He's not going to give us an in-depth tactical analysis, and anything he does say he's going to change will be interpreted in the media as criticism of certain players. Basically, it's a post-match interview and nobody should give a f**k what he said.