Least we are trying to play football

[Hibercelona]

Was at the game last night. The crowd was embarrassing to say the least.

In all honesty, I never felt we played "that" bad.

We were trying to keep the ball on the deck more, we spread the ball about well I felt. But we just could not break down a solid St Johnstone defence.

I think it's safe for me to say that our defence is our biggest weakness, and it could be the difference between 3rd or 4th spot & 6th or below.

I felt Riordan and Stokes played out of there skins, they never gave up on the ball, Riordan was chasing down everything all night.

I also felt that our midfield worked far harder than they did in the Hamilton game and the St Johnstone game at the weekend. We seen a lot of passing, but just no cutting edge.

Zemmama is class and IMO he should start in every game and take the game straight to the opposition.

I don't feel hard done by last night. All credit to St Johnstone, they didnt sit back and they were always pushing forward.

We were sloppy in defence, St Johnstone took full advantage of that, and we just didnt pass the ball quite well enough to break them down in the final 3rd.

Me, personally, I still think we'll do well this season, but working on the defence is a must.

[Steve20]

In all honesty, I never felt we played "that" bad.

Zemmama is class and IMO he should start in every game and take the game straight to the opposition.




I thought we were a disgrace last night.

However, I agree 100% with you about Zemmama. Class act.

[GlesgaeHibby]

Was at the game last night. The crowd was embarrassing to say the least.

In all honesty, I never felt we played "that" bad.

We were trying to keep the ball on the deck more, we spread the ball about well I felt. But we just could not break down a solid St Johnstone defence.

I think it's safe for me to say that our defence is our biggest weakness, and it could be the difference between 3rd or 4th spot & 6th or below.

I felt Riordan and Stokes played out of there skins, they never gave up on the ball, Riordan was chasing down everything all night.

I also felt that our midfield worked far harder than they did in the Hamilton game and the St Johnstone game at the weekend. We seen a lot of passing, but just no cutting edge.

Zemmama is class and IMO he should start in every game and take the game straight to the opposition.

I don't feel hard done by last night. All credit to St Johnstone, they didnt sit back and they were always pushing forward.

We were sloppy in defence, St Johnstone took full advantage of that, and we just didnt pass the ball quite well enough to break them down in the final 3rd.

Me, personally, I still think we'll do well this season, but working on the defence is a must.

I felt we were simply horrendous last night. We never win any second balls, are far too scared to stick the foot in and make challenges, and too many players not facing forward, looking to move the ball up the park.

Bamba being posted missing at times left big gaps in the defence with Hanlon and Murray being pulled across to cover.

It needs to be a lot better than that to get anywhere in the SPL this season.

[blackpoolhibs]

We maybe are trying to keep the ball more, but to say we are playing more football is probably stretching it a bit. We are slow on the ball, far too narrow as a team, and predictable. solely reliant on our fire power up front.

[Speedy]

I thought we never really looked comfortable on the ball(with the exception of MZ), St Johnstone outplayed us. Could have been a different game if we scored that f'in penalty :grr:

[Hibercelona]

I thought we never really looked comfortable on the ball(with the exception of MZ), St Johnstone outplayed us. Could have been a different game if we scored that f'in penalty :grr:

Am I the only person who thought the penality decision was soft?

[Speedy]

Am I the only person who thought the penality decision was soft?

Well I was in the famous five so didn't have the best view but I thought it was a penalty.

[Hibercelona]

Well I was in the famous five so didn't have the best view but I thought it was a penalty.

Was sitting in the west... it didnt look too convincing from where I was sitting.

I still screamed for it none the less. :cool2:

[blackpoolhibs]

Am I the only person who thought the penality decision was soft?

Just watched it on HI, and it probably was a foul, but just might have been outside the area.

[iwasthere1972]

Me and my mate Gary Mac listened to it on the radio. I thought it was a penalty but he said it definitely wasn't. :wink:

[Hibercelona]

Me and my mate Gary Mac listened to it on the radio. I thought it was a penalty but he said it definitely wasn't. :wink:

Wonder how many "stonewallers" that wee erse will greetin over tonight. :grr:

[Judas Iscariot]

Least we are trying to play football..

Where about? :confused:

If you constitute humphing the ball from back to front all night as "Football" perhaps tynie is a more appropriate venue for yourself.. :cool2:

We've played well once all season..

Against the part timers of Brechin :agree:

Every other game we have been outplayed on a "Footballing" basis without fail..

I've yet to see much change from the dross we were subjected to under Mixup..

[Hibby Bairn]

Stack hitting the ball 90 yards towards Derek Riordan's head is not "playing football" in my book. As for keeping the ball it is easy to do that with 5v2 in your own half. Unfortunately we can't match that any further forward.

[Hibercelona]

Where about? :confused:

If you constitute humphing the ball from back to front all night as "Football" perhaps tynie is a more appropriate venue for yourself.. :cool2:

A bit of an exaggeration no?

I felt most of the team tried fairly hard to keep the ball down on the deck.


We've played well once all season..

I don't recall saying we "played well"... I do, however, recall saying that I didnt think we were "that bad". (Not as bad as some people are making it out to be)


Against the part timers of Brechin :agree:

If I remember correctly, that game could easily have been a cricket score.


Every other game we have been outplayed on a "Footballing" basis without fail..

I would hardly say we were "out played" last night. The goals we lost were down to sloppy defending.


I've yet to see much change from the dross we were subjected to under Mixup..

To make a comparison this early is ridiculous IMO. Give the guy time.

[LamontHFC©]

Where about? :confused:

If you constitute humphing the ball from back to front all night as "Football" perhaps tynie is a more appropriate venue for yourself.. :cool2:

We've played well once all season..

Against the part timers of Brechin :agree:

Every other game we have been outplayed on a "Footballing" basis without fail..

I've yet to see much change from the dross we were subjected to under Mixup..

I agree.

Since when does Stack punting it up every time to the only players who can't win headers (Deek and Stokes) count as 'playing football', or even trying to?

Get Zemmama and Bamba back in the midfield.

[Hibercelona]

I agree.

Since when does Stack punting it up every time to the only players who can't win headers (Deek and Stokes) count as 'playing football', or even trying to?

Get Zemmama and Bamba back in the midfield.

Stack did punt it up a lot.

But we kept the ball down a lot as well.

We kept the ball down on the deck more than we have in recent times.

[BSEJVT]

We may have kept it on the deck, but as a result, gave it away for fun and created very little.

The team, subs and shape were /are an unmitigated disaster.

I could have told Yogi exactly how ST J would play last night but he either couldnt see it or couldnt adapt.

They were always going to press hard, punt the ball to big forwards who would win everything and play off that.

He had no plan B or nobody on the bench to go on and compete in an overrun midfield.

The result was they pressed us won the ball and had ample time to play with it.

Its been happening to Hibs for years, this flair pish is killing us and making managers compete with their hands behind their back to try and please the perceived view of sections of the support.

Most of the guys I know want to see us competing first and foremost and then if we can play with "flair"

We should have 2 killers in central midfield to make sure we are not consistently outmuscled and then play 2 guys wide who can feed the forwards.

Simples

[the happy hibee]

was at the game last night. The crowd was embarrassing to say the least.

In all honesty, i never felt we played "that" bad.

we were trying to keep the ball on the deck more, we spread the ball about well i felt. But we just could not break down a solid st johnstone defence.

i think it's safe for me to say that our defence is our biggest weakness, and it could be the difference between 3rd or 4th spot & 6th or below.

I felt riordan and stokes played out of there skins, they never gave up on the ball, riordan was chasing down everything all night.

I also felt that our midfield worked far harder than they did in the hamilton game and the st johnstone game at the weekend. We seen a lot of passing, but just no cutting edge.

Zemmama is class and imo he should start in every game and take the game straight to the opposition.

I don't feel hard done by last night. All credit to st johnstone, they didnt sit back and they were always pushing forward.

We were sloppy in defence, st johnstone took full advantage of that, and we just didnt pass the ball quite well enough to break them down in the final 3rd.

Me, personally, i still think we'll do well this season, but working on the defence is a must.

read my thread about passing

[number 27]

Just watched it on HI, and it probably was a foul, but just might have been outside the area.


I was right in line and thought it was a clear foul just outside the area.

[iwasthere1972]

read my thread about passing


THAT ONE THAT NOBODY HAS EVEN BOTHERED TO COMMENT ON. WHY THE BIG LETTERS :wink:

[Mibbes Aye]

We may have kept it on the deck, but as a result, gave it away for fun and created very little.

The team, subs and shape were /are an unmitigated disaster.

I could have told Yogi exactly how ST J would play last night but he either couldnt see it or couldnt adapt.

They were always going to press hard, punt the ball to big forwards who would win everything and play off that.

He had no plan B or nobody on the bench to go on and compete in an overrun midfield.

The result was they pressed us won the ball and had ample time to play with it.

Its been happening to Hibs for years, this flair pish is killing us and making managers compete with their hands behind their back to try and please the perceived view of sections of the support.

Most of the guys I know want to see us competing first and foremost and then if we can play with "flair"

We should have 2 killers in central midfield to make sure we are not consistently outmuscled and then play 2 guys wide who can feed the forwards.

Simples

There's different ways of making it work but two strong players in midfield would serve the team well IMO. IIRC last season one of the few games we were able to play well through the middle was the game against Celtc where we had Bamba and Thicot in there. In part that was helped by Celtc playing out-and-out wide admittedly.

I'm not convinced we need Bamba back in midfield, nor does it have to be Murray. I think Miller could possibly do it alongside McBride, and I thought Thicot had bags of promise but seems to be far away from Yogi's plans.

It seems hard to get away from 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1 though as the type of formation that would allow us to best utilise our players.

It's true about our midfields being powderpuff for too long. It was worse though. I was looking back at teamsheets from games in 97-98 the other day and our midfield was pretty much a select from Dow, Harper, Charnley, Rougier and McGinlay. While they all had their plus points (and Paddy deserves a lot of respect for his contribution to our club), none of them come close to being described as strong, defensive types.

[euro Hibby]

could be wrong but apart from the trouble in the middle of the defence we are struggling also at full back. Not just defensively but maybe even more going forward. Man utd get so much out of their full backs in the opposition half that they are often seen almost as wingers. I know that the Hanlon and Mccormack ar young lads but I believe this position has become even more important in todays game. In the past Hibs have had some cracking full backs !

Long way to go for the Hibbies this year.......

[cammy1969]

for me last nite to many long punt from the back and when we tried to pass the ball unable to find our own players for me that was on a par with any of the crap that was played last season

[woody47]

How can you say we were trying to play with the ball on the ground when EVERY bl00dy goal kick was just punted 50 feet in the air down field. When we did manage to get the ball there was some passing but mostly it was to pass to St J.
We were just so bad last night it was embarassing.

[fife hfc]

first time on this site since last night and can't believe you think that we played football last night. About 10 minutes after Zemmama came on was about it. the other 80 mins was spent hoofing the ball from Stack to Stokes or Riordan and having it returned with STJ playing all the football.

Yogi if this is your attempt to play football the GTF as it was up there with the worst games under Mixu. No attempt to play football, no fight and a greedy sh*te in Deek who feels he has a divine right over all dead ball situation. Last night should be as low as this season gets or we are in deep trouble.

[GreenOnions]

I wasn't there on Tuesday but did attend Saturday's game v Saintees.

I was concerned not just because Stack kept pumping the ball long to Stokes in particular but more because, whenever Stack had the ball all our defenders immediately turned their back on him and jogged up towards the half-way line.

Even in the most glaring situations when a defender was in space and his opposite number was twenty yards away and looking in the opposite direction the ball was still punted from hand.

It was so obvious that I believe that the team has specific instructions not to throw the ball out from keeper to defender. To me that seems almost incredible - especially when we are supposed to be trying to play a passing game - but I can't see any other explanation for the tactic.

The irony is that IMHO, when an opposition team is trying to really close down space to stop a team passing through them surely one of the ways to deal with that is to play it from the back to draw their strikers to the ball and create more space behind them???

[silverhibee]

We maybe are trying to keep the ball more, but to say we are playing more football is probably stretching it a bit. We are slow on the ball, far too narrow as a team, and predictable. solely reliant on our fire power up front.

:top marks
In a nut shell BH.

[1875 NO 1]

Good post. Re moving the ball slowly - McBride may be neat and tidy but doesn't have any energy to his game. Lots of safe and backward passing but little forward penetration.

Yogi really needs to up the temp on Saturday and have guys in the middle of the park who are up for the battle, then hopefully our forwards will come into the thier own.

[1875 NO 1]

We maybe are trying to keep the ball more, but to say we are playing more football is probably stretching it a bit. We are slow on the ball, far too narrow as a team, and predictable. solely reliant on our fire power up front.

Good post. Re moving the ball slowly - McBride may be neat and tidy but doesn't have any energy to his game. Lots of safe and backward passing but little forward penetration.

Yogi really needs to up the temp on Saturday and have guys in the middle of the park who are up for the battle, then hopefully our forwards will come into the thier own.

[blackpoolhibs]

Good post. Re moving the ball slowly - McBride may be neat and tidy but doesn't have any energy to his game. Lots of safe and backward passing but little forward penetration.

Yogi really needs to up the temp on Saturday and have guys in the middle of the park who are up for the battle, then hopefully our forwards will come into the thier own.

I think McBrides job is made a lot harder because of the quality of our full backs. Both are very young, both more comfortable at centre half, and both not that comfortable with their first touch or on the ball going forward.

This is a real problem when yogi wants his full backs to play like they do for Barcelona. :faf: McBrides options are mostly to the full backs or to the forwards, if iys played to a midfielder, its normally given straight back to him, or back to the central defenders, and we start it all again. Its all done at a snails pace, something i said after the St Mirren game, and its not improved since.

I cant see it changing until we get diferent full backs.

[Ell_Chrisso]

McBride, needs to get his finger out his backside at times, and look up and pick out a few killer balls. Get the ball out wide to the players who are screaming for it, for us to break.. Instead of the 5 yard passes back. Reminds me of Neil Lennon at times with his negative approach towards going forward.

With no Cregg in the team, we are not putting anyone under pressure, thats why St Johnstone got forward all the time with ease. There is no pressure from us with-out Cregg when we dont have the ball

[Cabbage1875]

We maybe are trying to keep the ball more, but to say we are playing more football is probably stretching it a bit. We are slow on the ball, far too narrow as a team, and predictable. solely reliant on our fire power up front.
Just came on to say exactly this after reading this thread. Spot on. :top marks

We were also warned over on Pie&Bovril by the Falkirk fans about this system where we pass the ball sideways and backwards and it looks to have come to fruition.

We need more movement and more urgency in our play for me. This would be helped by a more recognisable system where players actually have options in front of them, rather than passing it sideways/back for a minute then Sol Bamba/Hogg/a.n.other firing it aimlessly forward at small strikers.

[sahib]

Just came on to say exactly this after reading this thread. Spot on. :top marks

We were also warned over on Pie&Bovril by the Falkirk fans about this system where we pass the ball sideways and backwards and it looks to have come to fruition.

We need more movement and more urgency in our play for me. This would be helped by a more recognisable system where players actually have options in front of them, rather than passing it sideways/back for a minute then Sol Bamba/Hogg/a.n.other firing it aimlessly forward at small strikers.

Is that the fault of the two players or because the system leaves them with no options? Sauzee could probably have manage to find an attacker with 70 yard pass more times than not. I doubt Sol and Chris can, so Yogi better have a look at his tactics.

[Cabbage1875]

Is that the fault of the two players or because the system leaves them with no options? Sauzee could probably have manage to find an attacker with 70 yard pass more times than not. I doubt Sol and Chris can, so Yogi better have a look at his tactics.
From the very post you have quoted it is clear to see I'm not blaming the players for having to empty the ball... :greengrin

[Hibee_Rab]

Why does every say we were not playing on the deck just because stack took his goals kicks long? That does not mean the rest of the team were not keeping it down and playing passing football.

[Cabbage1875]

Why does every say we were not playing on the deck just because stack took his goals kicks long? That does not mean the rest of the team were not keeping it down and playing passing football.
It's all very well passing the ball on the deck and getting nowhere, we need a lot more urgency and positive passes. I also think we need more width which would give us an 'out' ball, rather than trying to play through the eye of a needle half the time.

[Hibercelona]

It's all very well passing the ball on the deck and getting nowhere, we need a lot more urgency and positive passes. I also think we need more width which would give us an 'out' ball, rather than trying to play through the eye of a needle half the time.

I think if we could keep the ball down like that in most of our games... but in a 4-4-2 formation with width.... we would destroy other teams in the SPL.

A lot of people might think im stretching it by saying "destroy"..... but I honestly think we would.

We just need more width!

It's a lack of width and a series of defensive blunders that are causing us to gift away goals and not push up the park as much as we'd like.

More width, less defensive blunders... and we'll be challenging for 3rd.

Simple as. :cool2: