Hibees Away. First Game

[Rid Skwerr]

Yesterday - a tale of luck and nae luck.....

 

Went through by bus (free bus pass!) and the day went like this -

 

Waiting for bus into town and found a tenner at the bus stop. Luck.

 

Got to Buchanan bus station to find long queue for Edinburgh . Nae luck.

 

Official goes along the queue and pulls out all people with pre-booked tickets and puts them on the 11:45 bus ahead of us. Nae luck.

 

We get on the 12:00 bus, which passes the 11:45 broken down before Harthill. Luck.

 

Thistle start well and get the first goal. Luck.

 

 

Then you know the rest.... :-(

 

[marco77]

Watched the full game on BBC Alba. Our midfield never really got going and far too slack in possession. We offered nothing in attack with and especially without Doolan. Simon Murray chased everything, closed people down, offered an outball and scored. He is the type of striker we need. From what I've seen of Nisbet and heard from his time at Ayr, he is not cut out for this league. Even his positioning is poor, constantly goes back post instead of making a run to front post.

[Yellow & Redneck]

If you watch Archie's JagsZone interview, it is quite clear that he doesn't think Kevin Nisbet is up to the job. He has had a few chances to impress and really hasn't been able to show that he is an effective second choice. Only in a footballing country as backwards and mollycoddled as Scotland, would a 20 year old still be considered a "youngster." Guys have played in, scored, and won World Cups at a younger age, so this is not an excuse.

 

However, what is an excuse is that our midfield didn't give much to our attackers yesterday. I said it was like watching football under Ian McCall: lots of side to side passes, with absolutely no cutting edge. And looked what happened the only time we really did try and play a killer ball...we bloody scored!

 

Obviously disappointing. No easy games coming up in the league, so it is important we kick on and get the win against St. Johnstone.

[lady-isobel-barnett]

As others have said our midfield offered next to nothing going forward. To be fair Banzo and Abdul are no doubt a bit behind in terms of match fitness. Barton is also not up to speed wherever he's deployed but that's most likely got nothing to do with fitness. I know Edwards can be frustrating and often his technique lets him down but the game was crying out for his energy and directness. So with Edwards unavailable the only other player that could've come on and offer something positive thru the middle was McCarthy. Shame then that he too was unavailable. It looks like he had to pull out the squad late on as his name was both read out and on the electric board.

[jaggy]

Does anyone know what our support was yesterday?

[Fawlty Towers]

Does anyone know what our support was yesterday?

 

From Hibs twitter:

 

Today's attendance is 17,630 - a big thanks to the 16,505 Hibees and 1,125 Partick Thistle supporters.

[Barney Rubble]

By my reckoning, that's five competitive games both Abdul and Stuart have had on top of the pre-season. How many more games do they have to play before they are considered to be match fit?

[Garscube Road End]

By my reckoning, that's five competitive games both Abdul and Stuart have had on top of the pre-season. How many more games do they have to play before they are considered to be match fit?

Could be that we are just playing with two haddies

Edited August 6, 2017 by Garscube Road End

[JeanieD]

Yesterday - a tale of luck and nae luck.....

 

Went through by bus (free bus pass!) and the day went like this -

 

Waiting for bus into town and found a tenner at the bus stop. Luck.

 

Got to Buchanan bus station to find long queue for Edinburgh . Nae luck.

 

Official goes along the queue and pulls out all people with pre-booked tickets and puts them on the 11:45 bus ahead of us. Nae luck.

 

We get on the 12:00 bus, which passes the 11:45 broken down before Harthill. Luck.

 

Thistle start well and get the first goal. Luck.

 

 

Then you know the rest.... :-(

 

By travelling by bus - albeit the lure of the "free" bus pass is attractive - you passed up the opportunity of using the ticket office at Queen Street Station for the very last time! The stunning rail retail facilities cease operation from today in order that the station is effectively rebuilt with a temporary ticketing facility being provided in the old "Vale" pub on Dundas Street.

 

I fear the above is a bit off topic so to redress the balance might I add that, whilst the result yesterday was, no doubt, not entirely unexpected, I suspect there might be a few teams this season that go through there, score first and not capitulate by shelling 3 goals in jig time - which makes the result all the more disappointing.

[brodieboy]

Having had time to calm down a bit.

 

Positives;

 

Fantastic goal from Erskine. Movement, great passing, confidence and clinical in front of goal. Where has that been the last few seasons?

 

Great stadium and atmosphere. Good advert for Scottish football.

 

Top celebration. No idea who I was hugging down the front (some of the young team had just arrived).

 

Negatives;

 

Edinburgh's traffic

 

The gulf in class (and budget) between the two sides

 

Thistle's complete and utter naivety regarding gamesmanship in the modern era. We were done time and time again by Hibs' bullying, diving and general dictation of the entirety of the game (first 7 minutes excluded).

 

The early (now regretful) promise I'd go to McDairmid on Tuesday night!

 

Confirmation that Nisbet will, sadly, not make it as a Jags player.

Edited August 6, 2017 by brodieboy

[jaggybunnet]

By my reckoning, that's five competitive games both Abdul and Stuart have had on top of the pre-season. How many more games do they have to play before they are considered to be match fit?

 

from what i understand from Archies comments, the last five games were (certainly with) Abdul's preseason and that goes for Keown an a couple of others as well.

[Barney Rubble]

from what i understand from Archies comments, the last five games were (certainly with) Abdul's preseason and that goes for Keown an a couple of others as well.

 

OK - so my question still stands.

 

How many games before Abdul, Niall and Stuart are considered to be match fit?

[lady-isobel-barnett]

OK - so my question still stands.

 

How many games before Abdul, Niall and Stuart are considered to be match fit?

 

Archie said last week at the Q & A something along the lines of being a gradual comeback for Banzo. He was referring more to top form than actual fitness, apologies for saying otherwise . Archie had the same injury himself.

Nobody on here will have any idea how long it will take the other two to regain full fitness tho' I wouldn't think it would be long with Keown judging from yesterday.

[Barney Rubble]

Archie said last week at the Q & A something along the lines of being a gradual comeback for Banzo. He was referring more to top form than actual fitness, apologies for saying otherwise . Archie had the same injury himself.

Nobody on here will have any idea how long it will take the other two to regain full fitness tho' I wouldn't think it would be long with Keown judging from yesterday.

 

Good Lady - the question was of a general nature, so absolutely no need to apologise on your part.

 

We've had so many walking wounded over the last 18 months (Banzo, Sean, Gary, Tomasz and god knows who else that I may have forgotten about) that you wonder are we unlucky or is there something in the training programme that needs to be tweaked?

[stillresigned]

Having had time to reflect on yesterday's match I t'd seem to fit nicely into so many of our performances over recent years, i.e. start well and then fall away rapidly to produce yet another insipid performance. Which has the fans thinking more of Palmerston, than the Parc de France.

From what I heard, especially coming on top of some of our recent performances, most people had resigned themselves to a poor result. Especially, with Hibs unveiling their flag and that club seeming to enter a more rewarding epoch than hitherto.

As for us, to be honest I think we were exposed for our failure to bring in a forward or two. I don't like to slag off young players as a matter of good form, but I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Nisbett simply isn't going to cut the mustard. I really hope he proves me wrong though.

Edited August 6, 2017 by stillresigned

[jlsarmy]

Disappointed about yesterday's result but not entirely unexpected , can't really understand about our recruitment once again .

We knew back in May after we had cemented our top 6 position where we were going to be playing , to go into the season with 1 recognised centre forward is quite simply bad management whether that's the Boards fault or Archie's fault I don't know.

I've no doubt we've had targets which we didn't get ( Michael O'halloran ? ) etc or didn't want to break the wage structure at the club for but we're now in a bit of trouble now with Doolan injured.

Have seen Kevin Nisbett in the 20s and there is a player there, it's surely wrong to slaughter a young player which we're doing just now who has played about 6 times in the first team , I'd be more worried about Calum Booths defensive capabilities or Stevie Lawless not tracking runners or Adam Barton consistently overplaying and losing the ball.

What I would say about Kevin Nisbett is his lack of fitness at this level is a concern but surely the player and the club can work on this and maybe we might see a more confident player on the park.

What we did see yesterday is we need to put Adam Barton back in to a back 3 which is his best position , time after time we pushed our full backs up the park with no cover and we got punished big time .

Should be a lesson learnt .

[Pinhead]

Disappointed about yesterday's result but not entirely unexpected , can't really understand about our recruitment once again .

We knew back in May after we had cemented our top 6 position where we were going to be playing , to go into the season with 1 recognised centre forward is quite simply bad management whether that's the Boards fault or Archie's fault I don't know.

I've no doubt we've had targets which we didn't get ( Michael O'halloran ? ) etc or didn't want to break the wage structure at the club for but we're now in a bit of trouble now with Doolan injured.

Have seen Kevin Nisbett in the 20s and there is a player there, it's surely wrong to slaughter a young player which we're doing just now who has played about 6 times in the first team , I'd be more worried about Calum Booths defensive capabilities or Stevie Lawless not tracking runners or Adam Barton consistently overplaying and losing the ball.

What I would say about Kevin Nisbett is his lack of fitness at this level is a concern but surely the player and the club can work on this and maybe we might see a more confident player on the park.

What we did see yesterday is we need to put Adam Barton back in to a back 3 which is his best position , time after time we pushed our full backs up the park with no cover and we got punished big time .

Should be a lesson learnt .

 

Agree with most but tbh I would bench Barton, he ain't shown anything in pre-season or the cup games other than mistakes.

Edited August 6, 2017 by Pinhead

[jaggy]

From Hibs twitter:

 

Today's attendance is 17,630 - a big thanks to the 16,505 Hibees and 1,125 Partick Thistle supporters.

Thanks. Great support, but as I suspected nowhere near the 2000 Knightswood Jag was hoping for

Edited August 6, 2017 by jaggy

[Dark Passenger]

Barton should play as a sweeper or not at all.

[potty trained]

Has Osman started a season, fit?

 

His defending at the second is laughable.

[MonehJags]

I agree with DP, Barton's best performances came when playing in the back 3. Im surprised we didn't play with him at the back on Saturday in that formation as he has been mostly deployed covering at CB throughout the cup games. Banzo, Osman and Barton in the of the park doesn't work. One of them has to support the attackers whereas they are happier sitting back. Spittal missing out was a major blow.

 

We are desperately short of cover in the final third. We don't really have a recognised striker for tomorrow which could see us bombing out the cup. Add to this the difficult league fixtures and were off to the same start as the seasons which have preceeded

[lady-isobel-barnett]

I doubt very much Archie will start most games playing three at the back simply to accommodate Barton. I'm not so sure Adam's poor form so far will improve just from a change of position. Would say that a by-product of a three at the back would be alleviating Booth and Elliott's defensive duties. Another by-product from that formation would be that Nisbet isn't quite so isolated with most likely Erskine tucked in closer to the front man. Archie favours the current formation and has brought Spittal in with that in mind.So far this season I've seen Spittal tackle the wing back role for 45 mins and he didn't look too comfortable in that position

 

All that said Archie clearly knows the pros and cons of formation changes and I'd suggest form and match fitness are the major ills at the moment rather than system of play.

[Alan Murray]

Am I the only person who thought Barton had a decent game on Saturday?

 

Apart from a few times he got caught on the ball that is! I thought he used the ball well for us.

 

For me both Osman and Banzo's lack of match fitness was a huge factor in our defeat.

Edited August 8, 2017 by Alan Murray

[Jaggernaut]

Am I the only person who thought Barton had a decent game on Saturday?

 

Apart from a few times he got caught on the ball that is! I thought he used the ball well for us.

 

For me both Osman and Banzo's lack of match fitness was a huge factor in our defeat.

 

Osman's behaviour at Hibs' second goal was odd. He simply refused to try to win the ball; not once but twice. Trotted over and merely stood in front of the player. Not saying he should recklessly dive in like of late, but his "efforts" were laughable, in a sad way.