Heart of Midlothian v Motherwell - 2 October 2021

[Swello]

If there was no control in place, every single team in the league would be at it. A striker going down with "concussion" and replaced with a defender would be useful in some circumstances. I don't know anything about this law, so might be miles out but it must be open to abuse...

[Ron Aldo]

3 minutes ago, Swello said:

If there was no control in place, every single team in the league would be at it. A striker going down with "concussion" and replaced with a defender would be useful in some circumstances. I don't know anything about this law, so might be miles out but it must be open to abuse...

Are you Graham Alexander? 

[LIVIFOREVER]

2 hours ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

I strongly suspect he won't fall any concussion tests

 

1 hour ago, Tony Wonder said:

I'm sure it was just a massive coincidence he got a head knock which allowed a free sub, 5 minutes after going down with a calf injury.

 

1 hour ago, The Tackle said:

If you look at the replay, he didn't even get hit in the head, it was his shoulder. We just wanted an extra sub

Yep, he was at it, but if he goes off with a 'cuncussion' and the concussion sub is used, surely it is then automatic that he can't play for 12 days, otherwise it's just another exploitation in the game for players cheating, and getting away with it.

1 hour ago, Swello said:

I assumed (probably wrongly) that if you used the concussion sub route, then you automatically miss out if there is a game within a set period. Otherwise, as you point out, there will be a shit load of concussions in tight games this year.

You'd think so yep, they have to know players will exploit it otherwise. Against Sevco Lewis got injured and we'd used all our subs, and went down to 10 men. Of course a player will be 'clever' and con the ref it's a head knock if he's injured and has to go off, and they've already used their subs, so a concussion sub can come on, but there has to be an automatic 12 day lay off period, esp when the concussion sub has been used.

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

7 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

 

 

Yep, he was at it, but if he goes off with a 'cuncussion' and the concussion sub is used, surely it is then automatic that he can't play for 12 days, otherwise it's just another exploitation in the game for players cheating, and getting away with it.

You'd think so yep, they have to know players will exploit it otherwise. Against Sevco Lewis got injured and we'd used all our subs, and went down to 10 men. Of course a player will be 'clever' and con the ref it's a head knock if he's injured and has to go off, and they've already used their subs, so a concussion sub can come on, but there has to be an automatic 12 day lay off period, esp when the concussion sub has been used.

I don't think there is an automatic lay-off though.   I'm not against it but you can't do it retrospectively

[MacDonald Jardine]

8 hours ago, Swello said:

To be on the points we are after trips to Ibrox, McDiarmid & Livi (places we tend to get nowt) as well as having Aberdeen and Hibs at home is good in any season. I guess you can argue that a lot of the teams we have played weren't on great form but that's not something that is really considered when we look at other teams' points totals.

If we can come away with something on Saturday, I think it would rival the result at Ibrox in some respects but our record at Tynecastle isn't too bad over the past few years..

Nobody's record at Tynecastle is bad over the last few years. 

Hopefully that changes. 

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

Are we really litigating a 89th minute sub in a 3-0 game?

 

[Tony Wonder]

7 minutes ago, MacDonald Jardine said:

Nobody's record at Tynecastle is bad over the last few years. 

Hopefully that changes. 

Tbh Motherwell's isn't that good. Since we came back up from the admin season we've played them at Tynie 9 times and only lost once, unsurprisingly under Levein in the relegation season. 6 wins for Hearts in those 9 games.

Edited September 27, 2021 by Tony Wonder

[YassinMoutaouakil]

8 minutes ago, MacDonald Jardine said:

Nobody's record at Tynecastle is bad over the last few years. 

Hopefully that changes. 

Hearts is tbf

[welldaft]

6 hours ago, Archie McSquackle said:

Our opponents have been getting plenty of opportunities and at some point a team is going to start aiming shots away from Kelly. Hopefully it's not Saturday but the highlights from the Livi game suggest the Hearts frontline was fairly clinical.

This is where I am at. We have carried a lot of luck in our wins. Even on Saturday Ross County could have had a penalty for McGinley barge at 1-1. I would argue our best performance came in our only defeat v Hibs in our 1st game . 

The good news was that the ref was so pish for both teams. How he never yellow carded Tony Watt for his goal celebration. Which would have meant he would have missed this game. Almost as bad as the rugby tackle on Van Veen that was waved play on. Awful refereeing performance but also in our favour it must be said.

I spoke to Sol after the game and he said he hoped to be back for next weekend. Whether that is the case remains to be seen but I agree Lamie has been almost a model of consistency this season. And I mean in a kind of good way. 

I am heading south on holiday on Saturday or I would have gone along. £27 is steep but only a few £’s more than us. And to be fair most things in the Capital are more expensive than Motherwell. 

I am unsurprisingly surrounded by Jambos (and a couple of Hibees) and they are very confident about Saturday. I just hope Van Veen has a Hibs or Aberdeen type performance as he has been quiet in other games. I do think he will absolutely revel in the atmosphere of Tynecastle. Red card incoming…

We seem to be able to adjust our game plan to our opponent, but I expect we will continue to give away bulk of possession and Hearts have the players to punish us unlike Dundee, Ross County and even Aberdeen. 

Would take a draw but expect defeat by a couple. Hope I am proved wrong..

 

 

 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

1 hour ago, Insert Amusing Pseudonym said:

I don't think there is an automatic lay-off though.   I'm not against it but you can't do it retrospectively

There's a balance to be struck
If they're too strict on people going off who should really stay on then they'll end up with people staying on who really should go off.

 

[Insert Amusing Pseudonym]

1 hour ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

There's a balance to be struck
If they're too strict on people going off who should really stay on then they'll end up with people staying on who really should go off.

 

Of course, maybe they need an independent check.  If they don't do anything though we'll see some rise in late concussions I'd think

[Guest superward]

11 hours ago, welldaft said:

This is where I am at. We have carried a lot of luck in our wins. Even on Saturday Ross County could have had a penalty for McGinley barge at 1-1. I would argue our best performance came in our only defeat v Hibs in our 1st game . 

The good news was that the ref was so pish for both teams. How he never yellow carded Tony Watt for his goal celebration. Which would have meant he would have missed this game. Almost as bad as the rugby tackle on Van Veen that was waved play on. Awful refereeing performance but also in our favour it must be said.

I spoke to Sol after the game and he said he hoped to be back for next weekend. Whether that is the case remains to be seen but I agree Lamie has been almost a model of consistency this season. And I mean in a kind of good way. 

I am heading south on holiday on Saturday or I would have gone along. £27 is steep but only a few £’s more than us. And to be fair most things in the Capital are more expensive than Motherwell. 

I am unsurprisingly surrounded by Jambos (and a couple of Hibees) and they are very confident about Saturday. I just hope Van Veen has a Hibs or Aberdeen type performance as he has been quiet in other games. I do think he will absolutely revel in the atmosphere of Tynecastle. Red card incoming…

We seem to be able to adjust our game plan to our opponent, but I expect we will continue to give away bulk of possession and Hearts have the players to punish us unlike Dundee, Ross County and even Aberdeen. 

Would take a draw but expect defeat by a couple. Hope I am proved wrong..

 

 

 

I look at it from a different view. 

It's luck to a point, but when multiple teams play against us and are doing the same thing over and over there is then only one constant. Us and the system we play. By in large we cede teams posession,  restrict teams to taking pot shots and from rubbish angles and play well on the break due to the quality of our top 3.  Goals will go in but the system works and it should work better against better opponents as they attack us. The challenge will be what we do when it doesn't work one day as teams will/have begun to figure us out. Ross County nearly got there by putting a man on KVV and a man on Slattery but we still managed it.

 For Watt, he wouldn't have picked up his late card I'm sure had he been yellowed for the celebration (which I agree you usually expect to see).

It's not for everyone, how we play, but I'm really really enjoying it.

For the game, I'm expecting to see Grimshaw drop out for Donnelly. I'm not Lamie's greatest fan but he's done well enough so wouldn't be surprised to see him keep his spot for another week over a returning Sol aheed of the international break. 

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by superward

[welldaft]

23 minutes ago, superward said:

I look at it from a different view. 

It's luck to a point, but when multiple teams play against us and are doing the same thing over and over there is then only one constant. Us and the system we play. By in large we cede teams posession,  restrict teams to taking pot shots and from rubbish angles and play well on the break due to the quality of our top 3.  Goals will go in but the system works and it should work better against better opponents as they attack us. The challenge will be what we do when it doesn't work one day as teams will/have begun to figure us out. Ross County nearly got there by putting a man on KVV and a man on Slattery but we still managed it.

 For Watt, he wouldn't have picked up his late card I'm sure had he been yellowed for the celebration (which I agree you usually expect to see).

It's not for everyone, how we play, but I'm really really enjoying it.

For the game, I'm expecting to see Grimshaw drop out for Donnelly. I'm not Lamie's greatest fan but he's done well enough so wouldn't be surprised to see him keep his spot for another week over a returning Sol aheed of the international break. 

 

I saw Watt on Twitter confirm he had not been booked for his goal celebration. The referee definitely goes to his top pocket but I don’t know if he has to note goal scored and goalscorer. It was all rather bizarre and inept refereeing as by the letter of the law that was a yellow card all day long. 

Don’t get me wrong I am delighted we are winning and averaging 2 points a game. I am also delighted at the players and the Manager effort and application. However I cannot say I have enjoyed the moments in games where the opposition pass about at will and unchallenged almost up to the edge of our box. I get that it is good game management to let teams have the ball in areas that cannot hurt us. Truth is in all recent games they have had the ball in areas that can hurt us ! Only poor finishing from Dundee, Ross County and more so Aberdeen has seen us win those games.

I also understand that most teams will have at least 50% possession v us so this is going to happen. My Q is how much are our tactics giving them another 15-20% possession. It is a slight worry when even Ross County have more possession (even slightly) at Fir Park. 

It is great when we are winning. But what is our Plan B if we start losing. I actually believe we have players that can hurt teams if we went toe to toe and were a bit more expansive. 

I think Alexander is doing a great job. He has a good record since he came in and I recall the days at the start of last season when we played good football, dominated possession and lost 1-0. Several times this happened. 

So I will take the wins and recognise this Alexanderball is making us harder to beat. Just hope we can keep this going. 

I fully expect this Saturday will be our sternest test yet this season including Flag day at Ibrox. 
 

 

[capt_oats]

2 hours ago, superward said:

I look at it from a different view. 

It's luck to a point, but when multiple teams play against us and are doing the same thing over and over there is then only one constant. Us and the system we play. By in large we cede teams possession,  restrict teams to taking pot shots and from rubbish angles and play well on the break due to the quality of our top 3.  Goals will go in but the system works and it should work better against better opponents as they attack us. The challenge will be what we do when it doesn't work one day as teams will/have begun to figure us out. Ross County nearly got there by putting a man on KVV and a man on Slattery but we still managed it.

This is broadly where I am as well.

We feel like a pretty efficient team at the moment. We'll cede possession and the trade off is so far teams are taking more shots but generally of a lower % while we're converting a relatively high % of the chances we get.

Where Hearts are interesting is they also seem to have a high rate of conversion. Going by the SPFL stats page Hearts have registered 28 shots on target and scored 12 goals (42.8% conversion), we've 27 shots on target and scored 11 (40.7% conversion).

For context Celtic and Rangers are 29.8% and 30.7% respectively and at the other end of the shots on target table St Johnstone and Livi are 15.7% and 18.7% in terms of conversion. Dundee's conversion rate is 12.9%.

Spoiler

 I mentioned this in our thread the other week but if you look at Alexander's league record since he got the job he's now had 25 games and we've failed to score in only 3 of them (one when we were down to 10 men, one when we had 17 injured/unavailable and a 0-0 draw). There's a point at which you probably have to consider that if certain things are happening consistently the probability of it being down to "luck" diminishes.

It's also deeply ironic that that a manager who gets his fair share of grief for being "negative" has been putting out a team that consistently scores goals.

Thinking back to last season, a massive part of our good form (3rd best points total in the league between Alexander taking over and the end of the season) was down to Kelly making "big" saves to keep us in the game. That feels like it's less the case this season and while Kelly has apparently made the 2nd highest number of saves in the league (according to the SPFL stats) the vast majority of them feel like they've been routine rather than game-changers.

Again, that feels like it's something that's down to teams (to date) ending up taking lower percentage shots eg: 11 of County's 18 shots on Saturday were from outside the box.

Spoiler

Edited September 28, 2021 by capt_oats

[LIVIFOREVER]

14 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

There's a balance to be struck
If they're too strict on people going off who should really stay on then they'll end up with people staying on who really should go off.

 

Halkett was injured, of that i've no doubt, wasn't a head injury though, and he would've struggled to go on. Regardless of Hearts going down to 10 men in that game, you'd still have strolled it, but it seems a flawed system easily exploited. The physio etc will surely see if it's a concussion, when assessing a head knock, and err on the side of caution taking the player off.

[welldaft]

2 players in the Scotland squad v Hearts 1. We really should be winning this .

I could not see Declan Gallacher in the squad…..shame really…

[Desp]

I'm surprised Souttar didn't get a shout, tbf (is he still struggling with injury?).  Especially when that big fucking donkey McKenna gets continually called up.  

[Martin_T]

53 minutes ago, Desp said:

I'm surprised Souttar didn't get a shout, tbf (is he still struggling with injury?).  Especially when that big fucking donkey McKenna gets continually called up.  

Missed the weekend with injury. Looking at the Scotland squad, there is no one I think that he would obviously be ahead of, even though he's had a strong start to the season.

[Phillips455]

Also it appears that the enforcement of the Vaccine passports is being pushed back to the 18th October. So I doubt there will be that many issues with the Herats vs Motherwell game atleast.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Phillips455

[JamieThomas]

59 minutes ago, Martin_T said:

Looking at the Scotland squad, there is no one I think that he would obviously be ahead of

 

1 hour ago, Desp said:

that big fucking donkey McKenna