Next Hearts manager

[VincentGuerin]

23 minutes ago, AndyM said:

Think Neilson still has a relatively decent rep within Scottish football. Could easily get a gig at any club outwith the size of the Aberdeen/Hibs/Hearts bracket IMHO. Aberdeen look settled under Robson, Hibs have devoured head coaches in the last 5 years and need to stick with Johnson for a while IMHO and that seems to be the mindset in the boardroom (I'll probably regret saying this). 

Possibly. It'll be interesting to see if his actual reputation in the game reflects that in a media where he obviously has a good number of mates, not to mention the backing of the 'nobody should ever be sacked' brigade. I just think in many ways people looking objectively at his time at Hearts will see a huge number of errors repeated over years, and I'd think twice before hiring that.

As for Johnson, Hibs are hard to read. I think he's a good coach and his overall record shows that. Ever since he got here though, I've felt he's been less than impressed with what he sees and I get the impression he sees the whole thing as beneath him. Hard to call whether he jumps or gets pushed.

[lennyzer0]

23 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

More interesting in a lot of ways than who Hearts appoint is where the f**k Neilson's next job will be.

For all the talk of it being harsh etc from outsiders, there's not a hope he gets appointed by Aberdeen. Obviously he'll not end up at Hibs.

For all that there were factors involved in his time at MK going sour, it's still a black mark against his name down there and he'd struggle to get anything approaching that level of club now.

Where the f**k does he go? Maybe United if they go down? Just carry on with a life of repetition and winning the Championship endlessly?

When we poached him from Tannadice, I sent a Utd season ticket holder of my acquaintance a wee tongue in cheek text, apologising for stealing the manager who just won them the league. He replied with a video of someone laughing until they were sick.

He was very much of the opinion that, minus Shankland that year, Utd would still be in the Championship if Neilson was in charge, and that the Utd support were generally delighted that we would be giving them some money to take him off their hands.

[mishtergrolsch]

1 hour ago, lennyzer0 said:

When we poached him from Tannadice, I sent a Utd season ticket holder of my acquaintance a wee tongue in cheek text, apologising for stealing the manager who just won them the league. He replied with a video of someone laughing until they were sick.

He was very much of the opinion that, minus Shankland that year, Utd would still be in the Championship if Neilson was in charge, and that the Utd support were generally delighted that we would be giving them some money to take him off their hands.

I was delighted when you lot paid us for him. He should have done so much better with the budget he had with us but that seems to be a running theme with Robbie. 

Ach well.

[Darren]

Neilson has regressed from his first season at Hearts, when we generally played entertaining football and used players in their proper positions.

He then reverted to what appears to be type in the Premiership, being overly cautious (particularly away from home) and opting for dull, possession-based football with no real thrust. This has been the approach ever since, including in the most recent Championship season. Much to the frustration of many Hearts supporters.

Playing strikers anywhere but the '9' position seems to be a relatively new development, as is the obsession with 3-4-3. But Neilson has always appeared to be tactically inflexible – he never worked out how to set us up against the diamond Stubbs utilised at Hibs.

Failing to learn from mistakes is a consistent theme through his managerial career. New ones arising (such as poor squad management, it would seem) meant his departure was inevitable.

[Pull My Strings]

Neilson did okay at United and achieved the target set, so he wasn't in any danger of being punted .. but the football was boring as f**k and he had Shankland to thank for turning lots of otherwise dull draws into wins. Very few United fans were sad to see him go.

[AndyM]

4 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

Possibly. It'll be interesting to see if his actual reputation in the game reflects that in a media where he obviously has a good number of mates, not to mention the backing of the 'nobody should ever be sacked' brigade. I just think in many ways people looking objectively at his time at Hearts will see a huge number of errors repeated over years, and I'd think twice before hiring that.

As for Johnson, Hibs are hard to read. I think he's a good coach and his overall record shows that. Ever since he got here though, I've felt he's been less than impressed with what he sees and I get the impression he sees the whole thing as beneath him. Hard to call whether he jumps or gets pushed.

As an outsider on things at Hearts RN did seem somewhat tactically inflexible.

When things were running against him such as the recent away game at Pittodrie he didn't really have any answers.  He has relied heavily on Shankland and a 40 year old goalkeeper this season and certainly seemed to under utilise some players eg Forrest.  From the club's point of view I can see why they chose to part ways but I don't think some of the interviews with various characters from the FoH have been too clever. The moonhowler I saw interviewed on SSN going on about Hibs in 2016 needs to seek professional help.

I would say that the performances dished up against Rangers this season have been abysmal. You can go lose games against teams with much greater resources, that's a given,  but have a go at them. Hearts have never laid a glove on them and I can see why that annoyed a lot of the fans.

Edited April 12, 2023 by AndyM

[Darren]

49 minutes ago, AndyM said:

I would say that the performances dished up against Rangers this season have been abysmal. You can go lose games against teams with much greater resources, that's a given,  but have a go at them. Hearts have never laid a glove on them and I can see why that annoyed a lot of the fans.

Neilson would probably argue he did "have a go" in the most recent encounter at Tynecastle. Hopefully Naismith is more pragmatic than playing one midfielder against them at Ibrox post-split.

[Connor1874]

On 11/04/2023 at 09:47, VincentGuerin said:

More interesting in a lot of ways than who Hearts appoint is where the f**k Neilson's next job will be.

For all the talk of it being harsh etc from outsiders, there's not a hope he gets appointed by Aberdeen. Obviously he'll not end up at Hibs.

For all that there were factors involved in his time at MK going sour, it's still a black mark against his name down there and he'd struggle to get anything approaching that level of club now.

Where the f**k does he go? Maybe United if they go down? Just carry on with a life of repetition and winning the Championship endlessly?

Be interesting to see who goes down this season, as I think if they part with their manager, Neilson will be a shoe in. Although, I think Robbie could do worse than to maybe take a break from management. Aside from his 9-10 month hiatus between MK and United, he's been in management gigs for 9 years straight and bar slight improvements, is much the same manager as he was in 2014. 

He probably could make a career bouncing around clubs in the Championship as something of a promotion specialist and I think clubs in Scotland could certainly do a lot worse than take a chance on Robbie Neilson. But, the Neilson we all know is probably never going to manage a bigger club than Hearts.

[Richey Edwards]

Poor Eric Black has no votes.

[Darren]

40 minutes ago, Connor1874 said:

... he's been in management gigs for 9 years straight and bar slight improvements, is much the same manager as he was in 2014. 

See my post above. Arguably he's worse.

[itzdrk]

Bullen in. 

[Connor1874]

On 12/04/2023 at 11:10, Darren said:

Neilson has regressed from his first season at Hearts, when we generally played entertaining football and used players in their proper positions.

He then reverted to what appears to be type in the Premiership, being overly cautious (particularly away from home) and opting for dull, possession-based football with no real thrust. This has been the approach ever since, including in the most recent Championship season. Much to the frustration of many Hearts supporters.

Playing strikers anywhere but the '9' position seems to be a relatively new development, as is the obsession with 3-4-3. But Neilson has always appeared to be tactically inflexible – he never worked out how to set us up against the diamond Stubbs utilised at Hibs.

Failing to learn from mistakes is a consistent theme through his managerial career. New ones arising (such as poor squad management, it would seem) meant his departure was inevitable.

I don't disagree with you, but how much did the quality of opposition we played in the Championship, overhype our quality? If I recall correctly, we didn't always blow teams away in that league in terms of performance. We just dominated poorer quality sides with a squad that could've still held its own in the top flight. We saw then what we sometimes saw even this season. Massively pedestrian performances for 90 minutes with small periods of attacking football. We scored a rake of goals that season and won a lot of games by 4 or 5, but in those games we generally scored most of the goals in a 15-20 minute period.

It was more exciting, but I think the scorelines against teams like Cowdenbeath, Dumbarton, Livi etc. probably just made us look better than we were. We did dish out a skelping vs Motherwell in the top flight under Robbie v1.0, but interestingly never did anything of the sort this time round. You could be right, but I don't particularly agree that we were a hell of a lot better to watch the first time round.

[Darren]

8 minutes ago, Connor1874 said:

I don't disagree with you, but how much did the quality of opposition we played in the Championship, overhype our quality? If I recall correctly, we didn't always blow teams away in that league in terms of performance. We just dominated poorer quality sides with a squad that could've still held its own in the top flight. We saw then what we sometimes saw even this season. Massively pedestrian performances for 90 minutes with small periods of attacking football. We scored a rake of goals that season and won a lot of games by 4 or 5, but in those games we generally scored most of the goals in a 15-20 minute period.

It was more exciting, but I think the scorelines against teams like Cowdenbeath, Dumbarton, Livi etc. probably just made us look better than we were. We did dish out a skelping vs Motherwell in the top flight under Robbie v1.0, but interestingly never did anything of the sort this time round. You could be right, but I don't particularly agree that we were a hell of a lot better to watch the first time round.

We did hammer Aberdeen 5-0 fairly recently, to be fair to him.

Maybe it's maroon-tinted spectacles, but I remember enjoying games under Neilson v1 a lot more, even in the top flight. The two Championship seasons felt like night and day.

It seems that at some point he decided to become Levein v2 (or v3, depending on when you think it happened), to his detriment I'd argue.

[Connor1874]

11 minutes ago, Darren said:

We did hammer Aberdeen 5-0 fairly recently, to be fair to him.

Maybe it's maroon-tinted spectacles, but I remember enjoying games under Neilson v1 a lot more, even in the top flight. The two Championship seasons felt like night and day.

It seems that at some point he decided to become Levein v2 (or v3, depending on when you think it happened), to his detriment I'd argue.

True, but still to this day I've no idea how.  I think Neilson's style will get these kind of results now and again. He likes teams to soak up pressure and sniff out the opportunities, and against teams having an off day or just inferior, it will get impressive results on occasion. 

i think the 2014/15 season lives on in our minds like halcyon days for a number of reasons really. The Championship was new and exciting for us in a weird sense, the dust had settled on the prospect of our club dying out and we were excited about the future, and to top it all off, the preparation for the Championship was spot on so we got to watch a winning team every week. A season that many of us haven't experienced watching Hearts, and may never again. 

[Darren]

44 minutes ago, Connor1874 said:

i think the 2014/15 season lives on in our minds like halcyon days for a number of reasons really. The Championship was new and exciting for us in a weird sense, the dust had settled on the prospect of our club dying out and we were excited about the future, and to top it all off, the preparation for the Championship was spot on so we got to watch a winning team every week. A season that many of us haven't experienced watching Hearts, and may never again. 

Beating one of the "Old Firm" to a title (and Hibs) helps too. The fact we'd done it before the end of March is remarkable. Suspect it'll be the high point of Neilson's managerial career.

[VincentGuerin]

On 12/04/2023 at 11:10, Darren said:

Neilson has regressed from his first season at Hearts, when we generally played entertaining football and used players in their proper positions.

He then reverted to what appears to be type in the Premiership, being overly cautious (particularly away from home) and opting for dull, possession-based football with no real thrust. This has been the approach ever since, including in the most recent Championship season. Much to the frustration of many Hearts supporters.

Playing strikers anywhere but the '9' position seems to be a relatively new development, as is the obsession with 3-4-3. But Neilson has always appeared to be tactically inflexible – he never worked out how to set us up against the diamond Stubbs utilised at Hibs.

Failing to learn from mistakes is a consistent theme through his managerial career. New ones arising (such as poor squad management, it would seem) meant his departure was inevitable.

 

1 hour ago, Connor1874 said:

I don't disagree with you, but how much did the quality of opposition we played in the Championship, overhype our quality? If I recall correctly, we didn't always blow teams away in that league in terms of performance. We just dominated poorer quality sides with a squad that could've still held its own in the top flight. We saw then what we sometimes saw even this season. Massively pedestrian performances for 90 minutes with small periods of attacking football. We scored a rake of goals that season and won a lot of games by 4 or 5, but in those games we generally scored most of the goals in a 15-20 minute period.

It was more exciting, but I think the scorelines against teams like Cowdenbeath, Dumbarton, Livi etc. probably just made us look better than we were. We did dish out a skelping vs Motherwell in the top flight under Robbie v1.0, but interestingly never did anything of the sort this time round. You could be right, but I don't particularly agree that we were a hell of a lot better to watch the first time round.

The 2014-15 season was obviously fucking great, but our performances in the games against Hibs and Rangers that season were a premonition of what was to become routine under Robbie in the top flight.

I remember after we lost at Easter Road late that season one of my mates said in the pub that we'd been second best in every game against Hibs or Rangers that season. And, perhaps the away game we won at Ibrox aside, he was absolutely right. Both performances at Easter Road were fucking abject, but the home derbies weren't much better, and we were pish against Rangers three times.

The big moments went for us in these games. Craig's missed penalty, Ozturk scoring from 40 yards in injury time, Rangers going down to ten at Tynecastle, etc, but all these games, every single one, saw a passive Hearts performance. It was glossed over at the time as Robbie was a new coach and the results were good, but the performances in the big games absolutely were not good, and they became the template for Robbie as a coach.

Edited April 13, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[DC92]

In 14/15 we were moving into a new era after years of financial uncertainty, we had a bunch of exciting young players with a strong team bond and competing for the title felt like a genuine achievement given the circumstances. We also got big wins in the first two games and rode the crest of a wave for the rest of the season. As pointed out above, performances weren't particularly good in the big games after that, especially in the derbies.

In 20/21 we started with a bloated, unbalanced and unhappy squad, there were no fans in the stadiums and we were probably more unattractive to prospective players because we were playing a shorter season which started months later than the Premiership. After we lost the cup final and basically wrapped up the league in January we were just playing pointless games in empty stadiums against defensive teams with a fairly shite squad. In sharp contrast to 14/15, that's a recipe for dire viewing. I think the answer lies there rather than a major change in philosophy from Neilson.

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, DC92 said:

In 14/15 we were moving into a new era after years of financial uncertainty, we had a bunch of exciting young players with a strong team bond and competing for the title felt like a genuine achievement given the circumstances. We also got big wins in the first two games and rode the crest of a wave for the rest of the season. As pointed out above, performances weren't particularly good in the big games after that, especially in the derbies.

In 20/21 we started with a bloated, unbalanced and unhappy squad, there were no fans in the stadiums and we were probably more unattractive to prospective players because we were playing a shorter season which started months later than the Premiership. After we lost the cup final and basically wrapped up the league in January we were just playing pointless games in empty stadiums against defensive teams with a fairly shite squad. In sharp contrast to 14/15, that's a recipe for dire viewing. I think the answer lies there rather than a major change in philosophy from Neilson.

I'm not so fussed about 20/21, for the reasons you describe.

The Cup Final we were just unlucky, then Brora was a disgrace, but in and of itself just one of these things that can happen. The league form in 20/21 just felt kind of irrelevant, and to be honest I hardly watched any of the second half of the season. We were always going up and the games were shite, so I generally watched films with the missus instead so I can't pass too much comment on that.

Once back in the top flight we've more or less reverted to type. Of course, some exceptions and some decent performances in there. But not nearly as many as there should have been.

[Jobby1]

As an outsider Derek McInnes is the obvious fit for Tynecastle. How would Hearts fans feel about him as next manager?

[Crùbag]

2 minutes ago, Jobby1 said:

As an outsider Derek McInnes is the obvious fit for Tynecastle. How would Hearts fans feel about him as next manager?

Just another Neilson?