Kapowzer Posted May 8, 2022 Share Posted May 8, 2022 I don't think many Hearts fans will quibble that their last visit to Fir Park was their worst away result and performance this season (outwith the OF) in a pretty consistent season for them. Will Hearts be squad rotating, giving fringe players a chance to stake a place for the big day out, have their eye off the ball or raise their game? We are on a run of 1 of not conceding first so momentum is definitely with us. A home win is a big ask based on our form this year but could have us in a shout for 4th which would be batshit mental. Cementing 5th (other results pending) would be a forehead swipe. Heart win at a canter after a cadgy first 70'. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ropy Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 8 at the back until the 70th minute then all out attack (we bring Van Veen on). Unless we sneak a goal earlier then it is 9 at the back. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny Danger Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 As a totally unbiased observer I would suggest that a win for Hearts would be good for Scottish football. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welldaft Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 Hearts looked good in the 1st half v Celtic. They are comfortably the 3rd best side in Scotland. The only game that matters to you is the Cup Final. I accept you would like to go into the game in some form. But as I see Rangers now playing their reserves. Yes I know they have a big game next midweek also. That makes sense. My Q to the Jambos is why risk playing your main stars in a meaningless game ? We are known for the robust nature of our play . Sure some coming back from injury but we’re it me I would rest key players. Why risk injuries. Then again it is likely both Rangers and Hearts will play B teams this weekend. So what is it to be. A full team for momentum or a few back up players. All down to what a Neilson is saying and thinking. Anyway let us have the 3 points thank you. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welldaft Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 2 minutes ago, Granny Danger said: As a totally unbiased observer I would suggest that a win for Hearts would be good for Scottish football. You just concentrate on beating County this weekend. Alright. No f**k ups at this late stage… 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kapowzer Posted May 9, 2022 Author Share Posted May 9, 2022 With two expected losses on Wednesday, if we win they can do whatever the fcuk they want on Saturday. This season is in our own hands now. Would prefer Ross County to bump the Arabs to 6th, would be delicious retribution for Tonygate .... and £250k less prize money. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handsome_Devil Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 As much as I would happily take three points based on the simple threat of physical violence, I don't think that really works with modern rules any more. Having watched most of Hearts v United and caught the fall-out from County, it seems clear they will neither jog it in or go out at full pelt. Which is fair enough really and I expect that slight reduction to cancel out a little of their quality advantage. Will it be enough? No idea, there are so many ifs, buts, maybes from both camps I don't think anyone can make a prediction with real certainty. I reckon it'll be settled by the odd goal in three but I've yet to decide if it'll be for us or against. Where do Hearts fans rank this side in the grand scheme of things? It's been clear since before Christmas they were going to cruise third place but while there are some good players in the squad, and much more depth than many other clubs, I look at the comical gap to fourth and tend to think 'nah'. I appreciate that's not Hearts' fault by any means but the utter dross from fourth down makes trying to judge them fairly from the outside impossible. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welldaft Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 49 minutes ago, Kapowzer said: With two expected losses on Wednesday, if we win they can do whatever the fcuk they want on Saturday. This season is in our own hands now. Would prefer Ross County to bump the Arabs to 6th, would be delicious retribution for Tonygate .... and £250k less prize money. There is a big IF involved there. It would not surprise me if County get a point at Ibrox since they are playing a B side these days. It would not surprise me if we draw or lose to Hearts either. Of course I would like Watt to finish below us in the table. But here is the thing. You get 350k Euros for the Europe Conference League 2nd qualifying round + a home gate + a better chance of easier team = 3rd qualifying round and another game. So if I had to choose I would want Motherwell to finish 5th than 4th. In the long run it should provide much more lucrative and give us potentially two away days possibly three. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kapowzer Posted May 9, 2022 Author Share Posted May 9, 2022 IF we get through the past the 2nd round opposition which unless we get 5 first team starters in the summer I have little confidence even if it's the Maltese cup winners. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welldaft Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 38 minutes ago, Kapowzer said: IF we get through the past the 2nd round opposition which unless we get 5 first team starters in the summer I have little confidence even if it's the Maltese cup winners. Last time we played in Europe we had 3 rounds and prior to that another couple of seasons at least we had 3 rounds. But fair comment. Let’s just try and qualify first 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'WellDel Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Kapowzer said: IF we get through the past the 2nd round opposition which unless we get 5 first team starters in the summer I have little confidence even if it's the Maltese cup winners. We've given a couple of decent sides a run for their money before with much better squads than we have currently, but by the same token these better sides have also fallen to some utter minters in previous Euro expeditions too. I've gone into every one hoping for the best but expecting the absolutely humiliating worst. We could draw the fourth placed team in the Albanian Boys Brigade 'B' League, and I'd still not put money on us to prevail. I've been heavily on the Alexander out train for a good while and vocal with my views of the teams failings, but I'll be there on Wednesday hoping to see us sneak 3pts which would have us pretty much over the line for another tilt at more Euro humiliation. It's just that wee bit more glamorous to get bodied by foreign jobbers than this seasons early beamer was against Airdrie. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gianfranco Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 When the top 6 fixtures were announced, this looked our most winnable game. It would be nice for the JTs to lie down and send the Well into Europe. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'WellDel Posted May 9, 2022 Share Posted May 9, 2022 10 minutes ago, Gianfranco said: When the top 6 fixtures were announced, this looked our most winnable game. It would be nice for the JTs to lie down and send the Well into Europe. Our maroon friends in the 'hobo-bearded manager alliance' know what to do... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ropy Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 I assume we haven’t won a mid week match in 2022 and this is another barrier for us to break through. In this ‘just enough’ season. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Wonder Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 We have quite a few players who need minutes returning for this. Smith, Devlin, Halliday and McEneff all expected to be involved. Yet again I'm not too fussed about the result as long as we don't lose any players to injury, but it'd be nice to get a win under our belts as I imagine we'll play nowhere near our strongest team at the weekend against Rangers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ropy Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 This chat about a sickness bug is just to make sure the Hearts players come nowhere near our boys. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stu92 Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 On 09/05/2022 at 13:33, Handsome_Devil said: Where do Hearts fans rank this side in the grand scheme of things? It's been clear since before Christmas they were going to cruise third place but while there are some good players in the squad, and much more depth than many other clubs, I look at the comical gap to fourth and tend to think 'nah'. I appreciate that's not Hearts' fault by any means but the utter dross from fourth down makes trying to judge them fairly from the outside impossible. Hearts are currently 18 points ahead of us. We've dropped 10 points this season to Dundee and St Johnstone alone. The defeat in Dingwall to 10 men should never have happened, there's 13 points. Add in to the mix ONE other victory this season, and tomorrow night's game turns into a shootout for third position. All ifs, buts and maybes and highly speculative, but if we had even been semi-competent since Christmas then we would be on the beaach by now. As you say, not Hearts' fault that everyone has been guff this season but just underlines how weird this season has been that we are still somehow in European contention and also how frustrating it has been to not captialise on everyone else's guffness. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swami Posted May 10, 2022 Share Posted May 10, 2022 Mind we qualified for the Champion's League at Tynecastle? That was a cracking night. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC92 Posted May 11, 2022 Share Posted May 11, 2022 15 hours ago, stu92 said: Hearts are currently 18 points ahead of us. We've dropped 10 points this season to Dundee and St Johnstone alone. The defeat in Dingwall to 10 men should never have happened, there's 13 points. Add in to the mix ONE other victory this season, and tomorrow night's game turns into a shootout for third position. All ifs, buts and maybes and highly speculative, but if we had even been semi-competent since Christmas then we would be on the beaach by now. As you say, not Hearts' fault that everyone has been guff this season but just underlines how weird this season has been that we are still somehow in European contention and also how frustrating it has been to not captialise on everyone else's guffness. And if we factor in the 10 points we also dropped to Dundee and St Johnstone plus the points from other games we should have won plus one other victory then Saturday's game with Rangers would be a shootout for 2nd place. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJF Posted May 11, 2022 Share Posted May 11, 2022 (edited) On 09/05/2022 at 14:16, welldaft said: You get 350k Euros for the Europe Conference League 2nd qualifying round + a home gate + a better chance of easier team = 3rd qualifying round and another game. So if I had to choose I would want Motherwell to finish 5th than 4th. In the long run it should provide much more lucrative and give us potentially two away days possibly three. On this point, I actually think starting in an earlier round of qualifying can be a benefit for different reasons than you mention. For instance this season we played less qualifiers than we normally do and were very ill prepared for Malmo. A couple of games in Q2 will have you in a better place going into Q3, fitness and cohesion-wise, in my opinion anyway. Obviously there is the possibility the Q2 tie could be lost, but come through it then you're in a much better position than just starting in Q3. Edited May 11, 2022 by AJF 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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