Building since 2007, whats happened?

[bawheid]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Accountants should never be near the negotiations when players are brought to the club.

Why not? Seems like a good idea to me to have somone at the negotiating table who knows about money and numbers, don't you think?

You'll remember Chris Robinson left "football man" Jim Jefferies in charge of the SMG money and he pissed it down the sink paying guys like Goran Petric £14,000 per week.

[Purple & Green]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

One of the biggest problems, IMHO, was that John Collins had no idea how to replace the players that were sold with good players. We offered trials to loads of players rather than JC being able to bring in players that he knew well.

Contrast that with Mowbray, whose understanding of the lower levels of English football served us very well. Deano, Murphy, Jones etc all brought in for nothing, Sproule for £5k etc.

Collins spent too big on AOB and Maka, neither of whom fulfilled their promise. Known signings were poor as well - Brian Kerr was rotten.

In the end Collins had brought in so many sub-standard players that we were in freefall by the time he left (because we'd run out of money.)

I think you over state Mowbray and understate Collins.

Collins "players" managed to participate in wins in 07/08 at Tynecastle & Ibrox as well as beating Celtic at ER in the months before he left - 8 of the 14 player who won at Ibrox were Collins signings if you include Chisholm & McCann who got their debuts under JC. What that squad was capable of we'll never know but they were top of the league in the weeks before JC left. On that basis it's hard to argue that it was Collins fault for the drop in standards from top of the league to 12th over the last 4 years.

As for Mowbray for every Ivan there was a Simon Brown, Zibby Malkowski, Sam Morrow, Amadou Konte, Omar Konde, Paul Dalglish and Shelton Martis.

IMHO, the standard of player wasn't the issue - it was the discipline which was non-existent under Mowbray and extremely professional under Collins. I think Mixu went for somewhere between the two, and god knows what Yogi's approach was.

[smurf]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I think you over state Mowbray and understate Collins.

Collins "players" managed to participate in wins in 07/08 at Tynecastle & Ibrox as well as beating Celtic at ER in the months before he left - 8 of the 14 player who won at Ibrox were Collins signings if you include Chisholm & McCann who got their debuts under JC. What that squad was capable of we'll never know but they were top of the league in the weeks before JC left. On that basis it's hard to argue that it was Collins fault for the drop in standards from top of the league to 12th over the last 4 years.

As for Mowbray for every Ivan there was a Simon Brown, Zibby Malkowski, Sam Morrow, Amadou Konte, Omar Konde, Paul Dalglish and Shelton Martis.

IMHO, the standard of player wasn't the issue - it was the discipline which was non-existent under Mowbray and extremely professional under Collins. I think Mixu went for somewhere between the two, and god knows what Yogi's approach was.

As you probably know I was and am a huge fan of JC.

However, his results were pretty poor were they not leading up to him walking? Mid Oct - Dec?

[Hibs On Tour]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Well that IMO is wrong, a manger has to get 3 out of 4 or 5 signings right, I would accept 1 dud for every 3 good ones if we are keeping the good ones for 3 or 4 yrs, we have 3 or 4 yrs to move the dud on. If the thinking is we better only offer short term deals in case the players are not good shows no confidence at all. I do not think lots of teams are operating to quite the scale we have been.

It does not suit the club footballwise, how can rotations on the scales we are seeing be good? Defences need to work together for more than 6mths, we have had different striker partnerships every season over last few years, it is not going to work.

On the money with that. We seem to continually end up with a conveyor belt of players coming in [more often late in the window than early] which means that we have to 'give them time to gel' when pre-season is supposed to be for that. So we maybe waste August waiting for the new players to 'gel'. By the time Nov comes around, those on 1 yr deals are 'open to having their heads turned' as they can sign pre-contract as of the January window. Again, we end up adding short-term contracts in Jan. We give these players Feb to 'gel'. All in all, we have one team for Sep/Oct and most likely a slightly changed one Mar/Apr/May with the other months being affected one way or the other by contract speculation due to the short contract lengths. Bear in mind also that if we get someone in on a 'low-risk' short-term contract and they do really well for us, chances are they'll get poached in the next window because we haven't got them tied down! Its a self-perpetuating cycle that shows no signs of stopping.

The only way forward is to have a manager who can spot and motivate geniune talent and get that manager and talent tied to the club for 2-3 years for say at least 3/4 of the squad. You can then afford to have one or two 'ins and outs' without disrupting the generally settled nature of the squad. Keepers and defenders need to be settled with each other - FACT. Strikers tend to work best when played in settled partnerships - FACT. When was the last time when we had a pretty settled starting 11 each week? For me, it was under Mowbray. That says a lot about why we are where we are now. IMHO of course

GGTTH

[Captain Trips]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

On the money with that. We seem to continually end up with a conveyor belt of players coming in [more often late in the window than early] which means that we have to 'give them time to gel' when pre-season is supposed to be for that. So we maybe waste August waiting for the new players to 'gel'. By the time Nov comes around, those on 1 yr deals are 'open to having their heads turned' as they can sign pre-contract as of the January window. Again, we end up adding short-term contracts in Jan. We give these players Feb to 'gel'. All in all, we have one team for Sep/Oct and most likely a slightly changed one Mar/Apr/May with the other months being affected one way or the other by contract speculation due to the short contract lengths. Bear in mind also that if we get someone in on a 'low-risk' short-term contract and they do really well for us, chances are they'll get poached in the next window because we haven't got them tied down! Its a self-perpetuating cycle that shows no signs of stopping.

The only way forward is to have a manager who can spot and motivate geniune talent and get that manager and talent tied to the club for 2-3 years for say at least 3/4 of the squad. You can then afford to have one or two 'ins and outs' without disrupting the generally settled nature of the squad. Keepers and defenders need to be settled with each other - FACT. Strikers tend to work best when played in settled partnerships - FACT. When was the last time when we had a pretty settled starting 11 each week? For me, it was under Mowbray. That says a lot about why we are where we are now. IMHO of course

GGTTH

[Purple & Green]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

The decision to play Damon Gray in a 'Scottish' semi-final replay on the basis of a goal in virtually his first game for Hibs (against Aberdeen) seemed a gut-feel, knee-jerk reaction. Fergie wouldn't have done that.

It was the other way round - he made his debut in the cup semi, and then scored v Aberdeen the next week.

Fergie may not give youth a chance in the same way at Man United - it's different - but that's exactly the kind of thing he did do at Aberdeen throwing players like Eric Black, John Hewitt and even Tommy McIntyre into important games at home and abroad.

[silverhibee]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

That's a good post, Andy, and I particularly agree with the Aberdeen fan's observation. It's something I've thought for a while that Hibs are a club that is probably too convenient for it's own good. Not a bad payer, but not a good enough payer to make players desperate to stay. We attract decent players but they don't achieve what they should, largely because there's no real incentive for them do so, IMHO.

I'd actually like to see Hibs structure their pay on a very low basic, with big payouts for appearances (so there's an incentive to keep your place in the team) and wins. I think we'd see a sizable shift in attitude under those conditions.:agree:

Thats okay to say that Matty, but players would not sign for us if that was the case, why come to Hibs on a very low basic and hope that the team wins game, its no garuntee that they would win so they would end up playing for crap money that doesn't pay the bills, for example Hibs offer you £500 a week basic and a win bonus of say £2000, St Johnstone offer the same player £1500 a week basic and £350 win bonus, every player would take the St Johnstone deal imo.

[matty_f]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Why would a player take a risk to come to Hibs then. He could always get injured in his first game, then no money to support his family.

Matty, would you take that risk - for example, if you get paid (say) a quarter of your current wage, with the 'hope' that you could get large bonus if you are selected for the key jobs at work, knowing that only 30% of you and your colleagues could be selected at any one time!

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Thats okay to say that Matty, but players would not sign for us if that was the case, why come to Hibs on a very low basic and hope that the team wins game, its no garuntee that they would win so they would end up playing for crap money that doesn't pay the bills, for example Hibs offer you £500 a week basic and a win bonus of say £2000, St Johnstone offer the same player £1500 a week basic and £350 win bonus, every player would take the St Johnstone deal imo.

I'm not talking about Hibs paying less than St Johnstone, there are many teams in the league that pay less than us that are performing better. We only need to offer a little more than those teams as a basic, and give larger bonuses.

The bonus should be an incentive that makes a difference to a player, not something that they'll not be that bothered about either way.

[sunshine1875]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

It was the other way round - he made his debut in the cup semi, and then scored v Aberdeen the next week.

Fergie may not give youth a chance in the same way at Man United - it's different - but that's exactly the kind of thing he did do at Aberdeen throwing players like Eric Black, John Hewitt and even Tommy McIntyre into important games at home and abroad.

No, you did read what I wrote - I said the decision to play Damon Gray in a 'Scottish' semi-final replay on the basis of a goal in virtually his first game for Hibs (against Aberdeen) was to me a baffling decision. He definately played against Aberdeen on the Saturday when Collins rested some players, then played again in the 'Scottish' semi-final replay when better players did not start. That is the point I am making!

I watched Aberdeen a lot during Fergies time and he never picked someone from no-where, played them in a cup semi or final, then disgarded them. Guys like Black and Hewitt were regular first team players by the time they played in cup semis / finals.

[Purple & Green]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

No, you did read what I wrote - I said the decision to play Damon Gray in a 'Scottish' semi-final replay on the basis of a goal in virtually his first game for Hibs (against Aberdeen) was to me a baffling decision. He definately played against Aberdeen on the Saturday when Collins rested some players, then played again in the 'Scottish' semi-final replay when better players did not start. That is the point I am making!

I watched Aberdeen a lot during Fergies time and he never picked someone from no-where, played them in a cup semi or final, then disgarded them. Guys like Black and Hewitt were regular first team players by the time they played in cup semis / finals.

I take your point about starting Gray, what I was saying was he made his debut as sub in the first semi, and then scored v Aberdeen between games before he started the replay.

As regards Fergie, Eric Black, for example made his debut in a new firm derby, then played at Parkhead, v Partick and then Hamburg - scoring on his debut and v Hamburg in a 3rd round UEFA Cup game.

Tommy McIntyres second game was against Celtic in a year when Aberdeen won the league.

Without labouring a point there are other examples.

Fergie was bold with youth, Collins was the same.

[Purple & Green]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

As you probably know I was and am a huge fan of JC.

However, his results were pretty poor were they not leading up to him walking? Mid Oct - Dec?

We lost 5 of our 19 games that season before JC resigned. Does that qualify as poor? Mid Oct to Dec we were W1 D3 L4 - all post Ibrox which seems to be a turning point - maybe the players believed their own hype - in the aftermath Shiels and Morais were sent off costing us games at Fir Park and at home to St Mirren. All the terrible Mowbray indiscipline creeping back in - Gathuessi sent off v Falkirk too.

[connerg]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I think you over state Mowbray and understate Collins.

Collins "players" managed to participate in wins in 07/08 at Tynecastle & Ibrox as well as beating Celtic at ER in the months before he left - 8 of the 14 player who won at Ibrox were Collins signings if you include Chisholm & McCann who got their debuts under JC. What that squad was capable of we'll never know but they were top of the league in the weeks before JC left. On that basis it's hard to argue that it was Collins fault for the drop in standards from top of the league to 12th over the last 4 years.

As for Mowbray for every Ivan there was a Simon Brown, Zibby Malkowski, Sam Morrow, Amadou Konte, Omar Konde, Paul Dalglish and Shelton Martis.

IMHO, the standard of player wasn't the issue - it was the discipline which was non-existent under Mowbray and extremely professional under Collins. I think Mixu went for somewhere between the two, and god knows what Yogi's approach was.

Does every Hibs fan forget the humiliating 4-0, 4-1, 4-0 defeats in one season by hearts, not to mention the 4-4 draw at home to Dundee when we were 4-1 up in the second half! Can't stand this love in with Mowbray, who gave Zibbi a new contract just before he f..... off to West Brom? Yes it was Mowbray!!!!!!!!

[Captain Trips]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Does every Hibs fan forget the humiliating 4-0, 4-1, 4-0 defeats in one season by hearts, not to mention the 4-4 draw at home to Dundee when we were 4-1 up in the second half! Can't stand this love in with Mowbray, who gave Zibbi a new contract just before he f..... off to West Brom? Yes it was Mowbray!!!!!!!!

Mowbray overall did well but like every manager when they leave along with the good they will leave the bad, like JC did like Mixu did etc etc, in 2011 the fact Hibs have came off the back of a tenth place finish and a 1 in 5 seasons euro finish shows a failure from the top. Hibs absolutley have to win today and take that forward.