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Heart of Midlothian - 2022/23 European Tour


Elixir

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Stupidly thought we were still in it at half-time, and that the score line slightly flattered them at 2-0, but the final score definitely didn't as they could easily have doubled the score. 

Having said that, all of their goals were avoidable, but not when you defend like we did. 

A combination of the Turks being very good and Hetz being poor. 

Embarrassing shenanigans at the minute's 'silence' didn't help. 

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

The idea that people who support the same football team should be expected to share the same political  opinions religious beliefs and  general worldview is a peculiarly Glasgowcentric idea

It makes as much sense as assuming that Hibs fans all like Coldplay 

Yeah but you know that they do 

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30 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

I didn't expect it to be as bad as it turned out, but not surprised in the slightest Basaksehir won. I thought it would be maybe a 1-nil defeat and thankfully never wasted any time watching or listening to the game.  

I think a few of our boys chucked it after two-nil, tbh.

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Second goal absolutely killed us. Up til that point I actually thought we'd settled into the 2nd half ok. Shankland and Ginnelly had half chances, but we were competing better. Second is avoidable, but takes the wind completely out our sails and kills the atmosphere and then we fell to bits.  They were a very good team but we definitely should've been better than we were. Halliday as a 10 while McKay was glued to the left wing was weird.  Just need to shake it off and not let it ruin the group for us or it could be a long couple of months. 

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We were expectedly well beaten by a better team but, based on what I saw, it was a game we could have got something with more players available or with better decision making and organisation. That's what's so disappointing.

The first goal doesn't happen if Haring simply gets rid of it. The second might not have happened if we'd had an actual centre-back on the pitch. After that we capitulated.

Overall it was a messy, disjointed performance. We were up against a better team, but it was a far cry from the Zurich game where we were right on it, winning second balls, making the right decisions in possession (up to the edge of the box) and looked like we had a clear game plan. This was miles off that.

Despite that, we still had chances. Haring's header was a bit unlucky but we also had Halliday forgetting that other players were on the pitch when through on goal and Shankland choosing to shoot from 25 yards instead of playing a teammate in. I can accept missing chances but the decision making is so frequently wrong in the final third.

Looking ahead to Thursday, having Halkett back should improve the defence substantially. My bigger concern is the attacking side of the team, which we haven't improved at all this summer. Winning this game is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on its own and taking 6 points off them nearly a million. A lack of quality signings in the forward areas could end up costing us heavily.

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Everyone excited again then?

Off to Riga tomorrow. Can't wait for the trip, but no idea what to expect from the game.

They've had some respectable results in Europe in the last few season, but then what do you make of a team whose last three European games are draws with Fiorentina and Linfield?

No idea.

Can't wait, all the same.

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Thursday is huge. A win secures over £400k in prize money, keeps us alive in the group and maybe puts a spring back in our step going into a tough set of fixtures in October.

A poor result reduces our remaining European games to dead rubbers and piles the pressure on going into said October fixtures.

Unfortunately I'm not excited because the latter seems likelier than the former just now. Apparently they were battered by Linfield in Belfast but I watched highlights of the first leg and it looked like Linfield were similarly lucky to get a result in that game. Any team that can draw in Florence is going to be hard for us to beat.

There also isn't really a part of our team that's functioning properly at the moment. If Halkett misses out again we don't have any out-and-out centre-backs. The fit midfield options other than Devlin haven't been up to much so far and we've looked stale and predictable up front.

I think RFS play a back three so I expect we might match up:

Gordon

Smith Halkett Kingsley 

Atkinson Grant Devlin Cochrane

Humphrys Shankland McKay

Haring might play in place of Grant in midfield for some extra height but other than that I think this will be pretty close.

Humphrys looked decent enough when he came on last week and we need someone getting closer to Shankland. Playing 3-4-3 will also hopefully allow McKay more attacking freedom to do some damage and let Kingsley drive forward at times and make us a bit more unpredictable.

If Halkett doesn't make it then f**k knows.

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I didn't think we were bad on the whole last week. I've seen us play much worse and lose by much smaller margins. Unfortunately we were playing a very good team. I, like others, thought that the puff went out of the team after the second goal.

 

Whilst Istanbul played very well, their no 9 & 77 (playing at 9) were borderline unplayable. Unfortunately we don't have massive defenders, even Halkett isn't particularly tall. 

 

I'm more concerned that Riga got a good result in Florence and are apparently a team of Baltic Giants. This will be a far cry from playing Baltic nation teams 20 years ago. 

 

Quietly confident of a close away victory 🤞

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Halkett and Forest are fucked for this, and I've no doubt the big German lad is still waiting on his visa.
These games feel a bit like glorified friendlies where we can make a few bob, and opportunities for messy trips away. 

Should be used to help country coefficient and up hearts coeff for better seeding in future should be hoping for 6 points get some money in the bag and builds for future anything more is a bonus and possible qualification out of group
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3 hours ago, paranoid android said:

Halkett and Forest are fucked for this, and I've no doubt the big German lad is still waiting on his visa.

These games feel a bit like glorified friendlies where we can make a few bob, and opportunities for messy trips away. 

 

Halkett and Forrest have both travelled.

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