Do teams really 'not turn up' for games?

[ancient hibee]

Isn't it obvious that SJ would be concentrating on nullifying Boyle and that we should have worked on something on the other side of the park. To me that could have been done by playing Doig further forward in place of Irvine with Stevenson behind him.Even thouigh he will do well Doig has been over praised but he has pace and shows spirit. Yesterday he had one run when he forced a corner out of nothing. This compared with Murphy who later got in the same position and meekly allowed himself to be shepherded over for a bye kick. I really don't think that changing to that set up could have been any worse than the performance of Irvine yesterday.Newell has some good qualities but as Souness said in an article recently "when he sees passing stats he wants to know what parr of the park the passes were made in". All my years supporting Hibs a common fault in all but the best sides has been a readiness to allow opponents to set the tempo of the game. Quite clearly against a well drilled side like SJ you have to try to take them out of their comfort zone by doing something differently. We failed miserably.

[CL0762]

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Not one player won their personal battle with their opponent. St Johnstone went man for man and they all won theirs.

That’s one of the biggest disappointments, we needed players on the park who were determined to win, to go at their opposite number again and again and we were left wanting.

You can talk about tactics, formations, systems etc all day long, but if players don’t have the heart for the fight on the day, you’re always going to struggle.

I have no complaints about the team selection. It was a toss up between Porteous and McGregor, but other than that I think Ross was right to think he could trust the eleven that started.

Easy to manage the game with hindsight, but i genuinely don’t know what formation or tactics you could set up that counters your own players ****ting the bed on the day.

Probably the post I resonate with the most tbh.

You can argue about the managers tactics being sub standard and all of that, but ultimately the players on the park have to have the desire to go out there and win their battles, like you said.

Callum Booth, someone deemed not good enough for Hibs, showed the type of fight required to win a game not once but twice in the space of a few seconds. He was determined that he was getting that ball and that for me was the main difference between the 2 sides.

Jason Kerr said it in his interview after the game, St Johnstone wanted it more and that for me is unforgivable.

You can show up and get beaten on the day, that happens all over football.

But we went down with an absolute whimper, absolutely no one in that side had the balls required to grab the game by the scruff of the neck. The manager can’t instill fight or desire, that has to come from within.

[Yorkshire HFC]

Hibs played rubbish yesterday - so what, it's called life.

I don't understand the people on this website - Hibs have given the fans a great distraction from real life in the last few weeks - everyone had been looking forward to the Cup Final and hoping for the best - that's what being a fan is about. It would have been great if Hibs had won, but sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But people just want to slag off the players, want them sold, want the manager sacked.

It's sport - there's no entitlement to winning a game. And it is only a hobby for everyone on here.

[BoomtownHibees]

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Hibs played rubbish yesterday - so what, it's called life.

I don't understand the people on this website - Hibs have given the fans a great distraction from real life in the last few weeks - everyone had been looking forward to the Cup Final and hoping for the best - that's what being a fan is about. It would have been great if Hibs had won, but sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But people just want to slag off the players, want them sold, want the manager sacked.

It's sport - there's no entitlement to winning a game. And it is only a hobby for everyone on here.

Yep, so what 🙄

[MWHIBBIES]

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Hibs played rubbish yesterday - so what, it's called life.

I don't understand the people on this website - Hibs have given the fans a great distraction from real life in the last few weeks - everyone had been looking forward to the Cup Final and hoping for the best - that's what being a fan is about. It would have been great if Hibs had won, but sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But people just want to slag off the players, want them sold, want the manager sacked.

It's sport - there's no entitlement to winning a game. And it is only a hobby for everyone on here.

I wish it was a case of sometimes we win, sometimes we don't.

Thats 8 finals for me now, 2 wins. More often we lose. I don't want to slag off anyone, I really don't. I defended Ross and the players all season. Yesterday they ****ed our best shot at Silverware in years.

St Johnstone have been in 3 finals, won 3.

[Hibee Mac]

I agree with the general consensus here, I still think JR offered no tactical alternatives to counter St Johnstone but the vast majority of the blame lies with the players here.

JR could have been bold and tried something tactically different to the last 3 carbon copy games v them, but I still think the way he set us up we should have been capable of doing so much more. The players should be ashamed after that performance, utterly woeful.

I wouldn't be saying that if we showed some fight about us but that was clearly not the case. I'll find it difficult to trust this group of players when the chips are down.