Next season.

[Hibrandenburg]

Would achieving 3rd place and a few good cup runs be considered a reasonable success next season?

[MWHIBBIES]

Probably yes. Its about consistently punching our weight. A top 4 finish, win over Rangers and Celtic, a couple over Hearts/Aberdeen and a a semi appearence where we play well and give it a good shot would do me.

4th by a bawhair, wilting in big games and cup semi/final no shows would not be so good.

[bingo70]

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Would achieving 3rd place and a few good cup runs be considered a reasonable success next season?

Yes.

If we continually lose games like we did yesterday though then the manager will continue to attract a lot of criticism.

[Unseen work]

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt.

When was the last time we came third in consecutive seasons?

As a fan base we seem to demand one thing and as soon as we achieve it once there’s an expectation that’s the minimum we do the next season.

I want us to consistently show ourselves to be the best of the rest in the first instance and do that for 4/5 years. Obviously with cup runs in there too.

Sacking a manager after every disappointment is ridiculous and could set us back years with guys like Heckingbottom. Even Lennon, who some fans seemed to love never accomplished what Ross has and when he left us we were 8th.

[madhatter]

Probably. If we lose heavily in Europe and have bad derby record then becomes less obvious than it should be.

Did we lose 7-0 in Europe? Did Hearts knock us out both cups?

[Sir David Gray]

3rd place will always be success for us, barring a Manchester City style takeover.

The cup runs completely depend upon which team knocks us out. Losing a final to St Johnstone in the manner we did yesterday will likely detract from the good work of finishing 3rd in a way that losing in the 3rd round (or whenever we enter) to Celtic or Rangers would not.

[Since452]

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Would achieving 3rd place and a few good cup runs be considered a reasonable success next season?

Yes

[Lancs Harp]

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Probably yes. Its about consistently punching our weight. A top 4 finish, win over Rangers and Celtic, a couple over Hearts/Aberdeen and a a semi appearence where we play well and give it a good shot would do me.

4th by a bawhair, wilting in big games and cup semi/final no shows would not be so good.

Similar although I dont consider finishing 3rd or 4th punching above our weight, it should be our expectation. I'd replace your semi final appearance with a final appearance, personally I dont consider losing in a semi final much of a success.

Been a strange season for me, its a great achievement to finish third but a season littered with disappointments, in the latter stages of the cup and more than a few disappointing performances at home in the league. Done very well away from home. I think we are bit clueless sometimes when the onus is on us to take the game to the opposition. I will openly admit Im not Jacks greatest fan but Im not in the Jack out camp, let him build on what we have achieved this season.

[ahibby]

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Would achieving 3rd place and a few good cup runs be considered a reasonable success next season?

I hope its as good as that but if Hearts and Aberdeen strengthen then with Celtic improving its going to be difficukt to finish 3rd and reach cup finals. Add to that a team overhaul and JR not getting the team up for the biggest games, my expectations are not that high but fingers crossed.

[green day]

I would be delighted to be 5th and win both cups, maybe thats just me.....................

[MWHIBBIES]

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Similar although I dont consider finishing 3rd or 4th punching above our weight, it should be our expectation. I'd replace your semi final appearance with a final appearance, personally I dont consider losing in a semi final much of a success.

Been a strange season for me, its a great achievement to finish third but a season littered with disappointments, in the latter stages of the cup and more than a few disappointing performances at home in the league. Done very well away from home. I think we are bit clueless sometimes when the onus is on us to take the game to the opposition. I will openly admit Im not Jacks greatest fan but Im not in the Jack out camp, let him build on what we have achieved this season.

I said punching our weight, not above our weight.

[Lancs Harp]

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I said punching our weight, not above our weight.

Apologies I need a stronger pair of reading glasses.

[ahibby]

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Similar although I dont consider finishing 3rd or 4th punching above our weight, it should be our expectation. I'd replace your semi final appearance with a final appearance, personally I dont consider losing in a semi final much of a success.

Been a strange season for me, its a great achievement to finish third but a season littered with disappointments, in the latter stages of the cup and more than a few disappointing performances at home in the league. Done very well away from home. I think we are bit clueless sometimes when the onus is on us to take the game to the opposition. I will openly admit Im not Jacks greatest fan but Im not in the Jack out camp, let him build on what we have achieved this season.

I get the gist of what u say. This season we should have finished 3rd or 4th. With Aberdeen under performing then 3rd is probably where we should have finished. So credit to JR for punching our weight but we have never this season punched above our weight imo. Some other clubs have.

[wookie70]

Given we finished 3rd and Aberdeen need a rebuild and Hearts are a mess I would say 3rd is level par next year. Anything under 5th should be seen as total failure with the position we are starting from

[ahibby]

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I would be delighted to be 5th and win both cups, maybe thats just me.....................

That made me laugh because its true some will feel that way and maybe theres a bit of irony in it. I am not sure where I stand on that particularly but if we had finished 3rd and won the SC I think I would have forgotten many dismal performances.

[LeithMike]

There are other tangible things we can look at not just finishing position and silverware which is all a bit binary.

I want to see:
- a settled formation;
- a really strong central midfield pairing if we continue with 4-4-2;
- the team improving significantly at making space for each other and forward runs;
- the team being more compact and moving and down the pitch together a lot more;
- the ability to give teams a real going over when on song; and
- the ability to mount a comeback after a poor first half and going a goal or two down;
-goals coming from all over the pitch not just 3 players;
- taking the game to the old firm, at least at home.
but preferably away too.


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[NAE NOOKIE]

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Yes, without a shadow of a doubt.

When was the last time we came third in consecutive seasons?

As a fan base we seem to demand one thing and as soon as we achieve it once there’s an expectation that’s the minimum we do the next season.

I want us to consistently show ourselves to be the best of the rest in the first instance and do that for 4/5 years. Obviously with cup runs in there too.

Sacking a manager after every disappointment is ridiculous and could set us back years with guys like Heckingbottom. Even Lennon, who some fans seemed to love never accomplished what Ross has and when he left us we were 8th.

Yes it is, but lets not pretend it's one disappointment, it's three disappointments because losing a derby semi final and then a semi and final to a club you should be able to beat 7 times out of 10 simply can't be acceptable for a club with stated aspirations to be better than it has been in the last 50 years. Third place will save JR for now and so it should, even if I am currently in the camp that wouldn't exactly cover themselves in sack cloth and ashes if he was gone tomorrow.

As for next season: Lets not kid ourselves here, it's not dissing the achievement of 3rd place to say it was at the expense of an Aberdeen team having it's worst season in terms of form at least for a good few years. This was not a Hibs team losing to only the best, we lost games to teams we need to be beating on a regular basis in order to justify best of the rest status for a sustained period.
Next season Hearts will be back in the league and I don't have to remind anybody that hard though it is to accept for years now it seems they could pick a team out of the office staff and still bloody beat us. FFS, last season they only won 4 bloody games and two of them were at Easter Road, the last one a 1 - 3 humiliation.

Aberdeen will come back stronger, they seem to have endless pots of money and if they spend it wisely on some decent front men they will be a far tougher challenge than they were this season, we will be very lucky if that doesn't happen.

The question is, what will Hibs do? It's clear we need at least one decent centre half to put pressure on Hanlon and Porteous because the answer isn't Darren McGregor in the medium to long term. If we do sell Doig and circa 3 million quid will be hard to turn down, we will then be looking for a new left back. We clearly need someone in midfield who can spot a pass and I remain to be convinced that Scott Allan can be the solution to that problem given his stop start career, on his day yes, but how often will that be?

It will be a bonus if Daniel MacKay can hit the ground running, because our one dimensional and seemingly only tactic of get the ball to Boyle and hope he can deliver was horribly exposed yesterday and will be again, stop Boyle and you stop Hibs is fast becoming the mantra of every opposition manager. It's something we need to sort out because it makes us totally predictable and it's not fair to Boyle either, he got pelters for yesterday, but how can you expect the guy to be the absolute fulcrum of every attack every bloody week and bring it every time, even in a cup final.

We also need a tall striker, something Hibs rarely have. Yesterday chucking on a guy who could win balls in the box would have been a way to change the game, we didn't have that and it cost us .... Doidge is ok in the air, but he isn't a target man IMO.

Finally and perhaps more important than any of that we need a captain who will ..... A) lead by example ... and B) harangue, bully and encourage his team mates to give every last ounce on the pitch. That is clearly something we do not have and it's time we addressed it.

[GreenCastle]

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I would be delighted to be 5th and win both cups, maybe thats just me.....................

I would be happy with 9th and winning a cup especially if the cup win gets us into Europe!

5th and 2 cups will be over the moon!

Doubt we will see another non old cup double anytime soon though.

[AliboyFC]

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Would achieving 3rd place and a few good cup runs be considered a reasonable success next season?

Reckon we should win it.

[Bostonhibby]

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I would be delighted to be 5th and win both cups, maybe thats just me.....................

Same here but we should build up to it gradually by getting a couple of shots on target against st Johnstone, then scoring a few goals and maybe even beat them.

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[One Day Soon]

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There are other tangible things we can look at not just finishing position and silverware which is all a bit binary.

I want to see:
- a settled formation;
- a really strong central midfield pairing if we continue with 4-4-2;
- the team improving significantly at making space for each other and forward runs;
- the team being more compact and moving and down the pitch together a lot more;
- the ability to give teams a real going over when on song; and
- the ability to mount a comeback after a poor first half and going a goal or two down;
-goals coming from all over the pitch not just 3 players;
- taking the game to the old firm, at least at home.
but preferably away too.


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Add in more pace in the team, playing with a quicker tempo and a stronger captain please.

But finishing third and cup runs would certainly look like success. However, as a result of what we have seen to date there is no doubt the pressure will now be on to see us win some 'big' games. What are they? Hard to say until we encounter them but in the absence of Cup Finals I'd say all the derbies fall into that category.

[Pagan Hibernia]

Regardless of winning trophies (which given the shortage of them in our history would certainly constitute a successful season), Hibs need a few big wins to keep fans onside. The odd win against the old firm, especially away from home would do wonders for the feel good factor. And we simply must beat hearts more times than they beat us next season. They are still a mess, I honestly think they’ll finish bottom 6. So I’d like at least two wins and a draw from the three games with them. The 1-3 home defeat from last year when they couldn’t buy a win against anyone else, and of course the Hampden semi final has really left Ross with a lot of work to do to get some fans back onside.

[gbhibby]

No you should always strive to be better.
That's a big club mentality. Going out in the semi final is not to be accepted. Not winning a final irrespective of who we are playing should not be accepted.
Whilst the old firm have more money it will be difficult to get better than 3rd place. If we had replicated our away form at home we could have split them this season.
It's going to be more competitive next season so it's critical recruitment is right.

[Steve20]

“A good cup run”. I don’t understand why people at the start of a season would accept a scenario that means we lose a semi final or a final.

Winning a cup would be a successful season.
Finishing 3rd is reasonable next season, but I’d hardly be calling it a ‘success’.

The mentality at the club needs to change. Mediocrity is accepted. Look at this seeson, 3rd place is celebrated like it’s some miracle that’s been achieved. It should be the norm.

[calumhibee1]

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“A good cup run”. I don’t understand why people at the start of a season would accept a scenario that means we lose a semi final or a final.

Winning a cup would be a successful season.
Finishing 3rd is reasonable next season, but I’d hardly be calling it a ‘success’.

The mentality at the club needs to change. Mediocrity is accepted. Look at this seeson, 3rd place is celebrated like it’s some miracle that’s been achieved. It should be the norm.

Semi finals and finals are far too vague a statement to say if they’d be a success or not. We could get to a final having only played league 1 and 2 teams and get beat by Clyde. That wouldn’t be a success, that would be abject failure but for some it would seem that because it was deemed a target at the start of the season to get to Hampden then we couldn’t be too critical.

On the other hand we could beat Aberdeen, Celtic and Hearts and lose to Rangers on pens. Whilst still disappointing it wouldn’t be abject failure. It would be a decent effort.

[J-C]

If we can do it regularly yes but it's getting beat in the cups in very winnable games with no OF in them that's let us down this season, add in the style of football and the all too often shocker of a game from nowhere and then we see the call for Ross's head like this weekend.

[The Modfather]

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There are other tangible things we can look at not just finishing position and silverware which is all a bit binary.

I want to see:
- a settled formation;
- a really strong central midfield pairing if we continue with 4-4-2;
- the team improving significantly at making space for each other and forward runs;
- the team being more compact and moving and down the pitch together a lot more;
- the ability to give teams a real going over when on song; and
- the ability to mount a comeback after a poor first half and going a goal or two down;
-goals coming from all over the pitch not just 3 players;
- taking the game to the old firm, at least at home.
but preferably away too.


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Good post. I’d add to that evidence that Ross is learning and adapting. The approach and failings of Saturday were concerning. Ross puzzles me, he seems to lack any sort of plan B and continues to make the same mistakes, yet he also has an ability to turn our slumps around.

[GreenCastle]

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“A good cup run”. I don’t understand why people at the start of a season would accept a scenario that means we lose a semi final or a final.

Winning a cup would be a successful season.
Finishing 3rd is reasonable next season, but I’d hardly be calling it a ‘success’.

The mentality at the club needs to change. Mediocrity is accepted. Look at this seeson, 3rd place is celebrated like it’s some miracle that’s been achieved. It should be the norm.

I agree with this hence why I think winning a cup is more important than league finish.

To win a cup you only have to win a few games and then a one off game against certain teams possibly like the Old Firm.

Fans who say win 2 or 3 of the Derbies - well we could win 2 or 3 but if we lose the other one 6-0 or even just lose it we really should be aiming for winning them all - Hearts have that mentality with derbies. We may be underdogs due to our derby record but we need to do more in these games.

As stated Ross needs to stop these horror show performances - he’s had enough of them this season and the final has now set him back after finishing 3rd. He needs some good results to get his stock back up or the pressure will increase even further.

[B.H.F.C]

Depends on the circumstances.

I consider this season more of a missed opportunity than a success. If the same things happen in the cups, it’d be the same. I don’t think we had good cup runs this season.

[GreenCastle]

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There are other tangible things we can look at not just finishing position and silverware which is all a bit binary.

I want to see:
- a settled formation;
- a really strong central midfield pairing if we continue with 4-4-2;
- the team improving significantly at making space for each other and forward runs;
- the team being more compact and moving and down the pitch together a lot more;
- the ability to give teams a real going over when on song; and
- the ability to mount a comeback after a poor first half and going a goal or two down;
-goals coming from all over the pitch not just 3 players;
- taking the game to the old firm, at least at home.
but preferably away too.


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Improvements needed...

Home record
When we lose the first goal or even 2-0 down..mindset
Derby record
Wins against St Johnstone
Win against the Old Firm
Wins against Aberdeen
Our central midfield
More striking options
Better subs - too often too late and it’s a panic when losing.
A midfielder who can actually be a playmaker / dictate games
A midfielder who scores goals
A left winger who plays regularly
Stronger bench - less injury prone players who don’t contribute