Summer transfer thread 2025

[Donegal Hibby]

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It's a backwards step. Do you think he'd have left to take up that role if we was still Hibs manager?

Not a chance.

If it was a backward step it was certainly a very good one and probably one that was a good experience , certainly don’t think it was all about putting out a few cones either.

[04Sauzee]

Bournemouth linked with a £20m bid for PSV forward Johan Bakayoko who scored 11 goals in 46 appearances.

I wonder how much Vente is worth 😁😁

[McD]

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Pretty much how I see it. The fee is the bit swings it for me. If the intention was for Smith to start next season as number one, I don’t think we’d be paying that level of fee. It feels more like, to me, it’s a position that we’ve identified as being possible to improve. I think there are a couple of those positions in the team, players who contributed well but you’d be looking at thinking we can possibly upgrade within our budget.

What was the fee?

[B.H.F.C]

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What was the fee?

He was reported as having a £300k release clause. Whether or not that’s accurate, I don’t know, but fair to say we’ve paid out a few quid even if it’s a bit less.

[McD]

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He was reported as having a £300k release clause. Whether or not that’s accurate, I don’t know, but fair to say we’ve paid out a few quid even if it’s a bit less.

Cheers

[Unseen work]

Who at Hibs identified Bursik and Slicker as our goalkeeping options last summer?…

[supermcginn]

Glad we've identified a big weakness and addressed it. Salinger's height is a huge bonus for cross balls and I expect to see further tall players signing.

[Bostonhibby]

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Don't agree with this at all, Smith looked a bit shaky when he first came in but improved and was immense against Rangers. 5 or 6 real goal preventing stops.

His distribution is one of his strongest points for me, rarely misplaces a pass.

Re crosses he comes for less crosses but again, he's gotten better as the season went on.

great minds think alike.

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[Forza Fred]

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I'm not sure how seriously people take the Australian league. I think that was a factor more than "sizeism". The fact Usain Bolt was his teammate says it all really. Nick Montgomery being so out of his depth managing here shows it's still a fair few levels below our standard and Nisbet looked average at best in our league and was the player of the season in Australia.

I don’t know how seriously people take the A League either, and honestly am not fussed, but there are good players in most leagues I reckon.

What I do know though is that there are several players in the SPFL who have A League experience, you only have to look at the two Edinburgh clubs for an indication of that…..and the likelihood is that another A league recruit may be added to that number soon.

[JimBHibees]

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Exactly. Not sure why people don’t understand this. Its a clean slate.

Yep it is pretty simple new goalie needed to provide competition which is exactly how it should be. The coaches will then decide who starts based on performance and form. The way it has always been

[WhileTheChief..]

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Is that what you thought of Gray the last 4 years, just the cones guy?

He kinda was, no?!!

He clearly didn’t have any influence on how we played during his time with LJ or Monty.

Thats nothing against Gray BTW, it just shows how much better he is at the job than Monty or LJ can ever hope to be.

There was definitely chat on here questioning what Gray was doing during these 4 years and absolutely nobody was suggesting him for the top job until he got it.

[Donegal Hibby]

Wonder will we hear about Simons after the weekend? …

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/spor...plete-10241852

[Up-the-slope]

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What was the fee?

Only direct 'quote' I saw was 'six figure fee' so quite a wide range...

[JohnM1875]

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Wonder will we hear about Simons after the weekend? …

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/spor...plete-10241852

Quite a bit left on his deal if you include the years option. Probably be a decent fee we’ll pay.

[Donegal Hibby]

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Quite a bit left on his deal if you include the years option. Probably be a decent fee we’ll pay.

Valued at 700k on Transfermarkt . Only guessing like though maybe around half that possible? . Had a look at their forum and seen a couple of mixed opinions on the two players…

https://not606.com/threads/summer-20...17804/page-161

[Billy Bunter 07]

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If it was a backward step it was certainly a very good one and probably one that was a good experience , certainly don’t think it was all about putting out a few cones either.

There’s no if about it.

[CapitalGreen]

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He kinda was, no?!!

He wasn’t and it’s pretty disrespectful to describe him as so.

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He clearly didn’t have any influence on how we played during his time with LJ or Monty.

He was responsible for attacking set pieces for a period of that time during which we were one of if not the best in the league scoring from set plays. Again disrespectful to suggest he didn’t influence how we played.

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Thats nothing against Gray BTW, it just shows how much better he is at the job than Monty or LJ can ever hope to

There was definitely chat on here questioning what Gray was doing during these 4 years and absolutely nobody was suggesting him for the top job until he got it.

There was plenty of people calling for Gray to get the job on here, especially after LJ was sacked but some were even suggesting it as far back as 2021 before Maloney was appointed.

[MagicSwirlingShip]

Is anyone a subscriber to the Herald online who can paste the recent piece with Mackay?

[J-C]

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He kinda was, no?!!

He clearly didn’t have any influence on how we played during his time with LJ or Monty.

Thats nothing against Gray BTW, it just shows how much better he is at the job than Monty or LJ can ever hope to be.

There was definitely chat on here questioning what Gray was doing during these 4 years and absolutely nobody was suggesting him for the top job until he got it.

AFAIK Gray was the set piece coach, it's now obvious that he has a lot more talent as a proper coach than what he was allowed to show under Johnson and Monty, the development of certain players and the team in general has shown us that.

[Heisenberg]

St Mirren linked with Alex Paulsen. Wonder if Bournemouth would send a player to another team in our league

[Cabbage-Patch]

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Who at Hibs identified Bursik and Slicker as our goalkeeping options last summer?…

To be to fair to Slicker hes probably a decent keeper. He was literally chucked in at the deep end last night. He was never going to think he was coming on being 3rd choice. Lads never played a league game in his life. Needs a loan somewhere he will be 1st choice. Absolutely mental Clarke picked him to be in the squad in these circumstances. Doohan should have been in before him.

I take it Zander Clark and Gordon are injured?

[Cabbage-Patch]

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St Mirren linked with Alex Paulsen. Wonder if Bournemouth would send a player to another team in our league

Don't see why they wouldn't tbh

[B.H.F.C]

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St Mirren linked with Alex Paulsen. Wonder if Bournemouth would send a player to another team in our league

Don’t see why not, they’ve got to look after themselves and their own players first and foremost. I’d imagine we would probably have had some kind of option to take him if we’d wanted to.

[JohnM1875]

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St Mirren linked with Alex Paulsen. Wonder if Bournemouth would send a player to another team in our league

Personally would find that pretty weird. Can't be short of teams looking to loan him.

[CapitalGreen]

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St Mirren linked with Alex Paulsen. Wonder if Bournemouth would send a player to another team in our league

No different to us potentially selling a player to an English Premier League club who isn’t Bournemouth. Both clubs will operate in their own self interest but if there is any opportunity when our interests match we’ll take it.

[Hibbyradge]

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Is anyone a subscriber to the Herald online who can paste the recent piece with Mackay?

What piece?

[MagicSwirlingShip]

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What piece?

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/25222042.malky-mackay-hibs-5m-shot-training-centre-plan-black-knights/

[Hibbyradge]

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It was mentioned on the radio today that both were injured.
Thought there could have been more support for slicker on the pitch from the experienced guys.
Absolutely no complaints about Slicker, I thought he was dwelling on the goal a lot, shaking his head, but the ball got past a lot of players before it got past him.

This one is down to Clarke, if he never had the team he wanted, he had a perfect opportunity to experiment with others.

Presumably he was experimenting with Slicker.

[JohnM1875]

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Is anyone a subscriber to the Herald online who can paste the recent piece with Mackay?

Just pop the link into the search bar on 12ft.io should work

[Hibbyradge]

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https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/25222042.malky-mackay-hibs-5m-shot-training-centre-plan-black-knights/

Here you go. I've cleaned out the ad crap as much as I can but a few bits might remain.

Exclusive
Malky Mackay on Hibs' £5m shot, training centre plan and Black Knights

Hibernian FC

Exclusive by Stephen McGowan
Sports writer at large
@mcgowan_stephen


Malky Mackay is looking to the future after a strong season across the board for Hibs (Image: NQ Design)
THE ledge of Malky Mackay’s office window is lined with one book after another on the art of management and leadership.

Reaching out to grab one, Hibernian’s sporting director flips straight to a page in ‘Legacy’, James Kerr’s bestselling analysis of the All Blacks.

Made up of the 15 mantras which turned the New Zealand rugby team into the most ruthless winning machine in winning sport, a yellow post-it note marks out a chapter entitled: ‘No D***heads.’

It’s a rule of thumb Mackay has tried to apply to one of Scotland’s biggest football clubs. The key to forging the culture which secured European football for the men, women’s and under-18 teams at the end of a roller-coaster season.

“The final 10 days of the season were an incredible 10 days for the football club,” said Mackay.

“We were balancing the men’s team going for third in the Premiership with the women’s team going for the SWPL title and the under-18 team going for their league as well.

“All of it was balanced on a knife-edge. Were the men’s team going to finish third or fourth or fifth?

“Were the women going to win the tightest title race ever or come second?

“And then the kids had three games in a week and that was always going to determine whether they were going to win the league or not.

“So now we have the three teams in Europe and I think Celtic and Rangers are the only other clubs who’ve achieved that in Scotland.”

The loss of £5 million for automatic qualification to the group stages of the Europa Conference League should have cast a pall over Hibernian’s season.

When Aberdeen unexpectedly beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup final, they secured a prize expected to fall into the laps of the Easter Road club when they stormed from the bottom of the Premiership to secure a third-place finish. If Mackay has his way it still will.

“That £5m is still there for us,” he says. “The outcome of the Aberdeen Celtic game changed things in terms of which team went straight into the group stages. But that wasn’t something we could affect.

“All we could do was finish as high in the league as we possibly could.

“We did that by finishing third and I’m not certain what more we could do.

“Congratulations to Aberdeen, fair play to them for winning the cup. That’s life.

“All you can do in this business is look after yourself. And we put an awful lot into what we achieved in the end.”

Technical director of the Scottish FA for four years, Mackay now works tirelessly in pursuit of marginal gains at the Hibs Training Centre in Tranent. Plans for a new full-size indoor training dome and a new facility for the title-winning women’s team are well down the tracks after a land swap deal at East Mains.

Trailed at the club’s AGM, the 20-year-old facility has become cramped and an 11-a-side indoor facility – a long-held goal of the late owner Ron Gordon – is planned with the financial assistance of SFA Pitching Up facility funds.

“There is a situation now our men and women’s teams are sharing a building which is 20 years old and it has become too small,” Mackay admits.

“So we have sat down and developed plans for a potential redevelopment. Obviously we have to speak to East Lothian Council and put it all down properly, but we are hoping for a revamp of the area.

“We have the possibility of another building, extra pitches and the potential for an indoor full-size 11-a-side facility as well.

“We are high up altitude wise in Tranent and the wind does create issues here.

“The difference it would make to the academy and community to be able to take players inside to a protected indoor-full size dome can’t be overstated.”

As a club Hibs are in a better place than anyone thought possible when David Gray’s team couldn’t win a game for love or money in the dark days of autumn.

Bottom of the SPFL Premiership after one win in 12 games, the fourth managerial appointment in three years was fighting for his job. Chairman Ian Gordon was invited to

Las Vegas for clear-the-air talks with multi-club investor Bill Foley and his Black Knight Football Club lieutenants Ryan Caswell and Tim Bezbatchenko following complaints that their input into key decisions was being ignored.

“I remember thinking, ‘This has to calm’,” admits Mackay now.

“My role was to make the place a stable ship and ensure that every message coming out of here is normal. What people expect. We had to become the club that we should be.

“There was a perception around the club where that wasn’t necessarily the case.”

An improbable 96th-minute equaliser from Rocky Bushiri in a 3-3 draw with Aberdeen in November proved a sliding-doors moment. After defeats to St Mirren and Dundee, when everything felt dysfunctional and chaotic, Hibernian rallied. They lost just one of the their next 14 games.

“People outside were seeing what was happening on the pitch,” Mackay says.

“I was seeing what was actually happened behind the scenes.

“We had a pretty imbalanced and bloated squad and we lost six games in the last five minutes.

“There were huge individual errors happening, we had four red cards in 12 games and we missed three penalties.

“No excuses but everyone could see that anything that could go wrong was going wrong.”

The current average shelf life of a manager in the Scottish Premiership is 12.75 months. While five clubs will start the new season with a new head coach, Hibernian held their nerve and stuck with the one they had. While few knew how much stress Gray came under during the dark winter days of November, Mackay had been there himself.

“I’ve stood in those shoes. And the pressure in the role is incredible,” he notes. “You are judged every Saturday on 90 minutes and until you stand in those shoes and see the pressure that comes from players, staff, owners, press and the public, you don’t know how that feels.

“Back in the day when I was a young manager you got two or three years to do your job.
“These days you are lucky to get 12 months. The situation is getting worse.”

The relationship with the Black Knights Group is now healthy, the two sides ‘closer than they’ve ever been’.



Black Knights president Bazbatchenko is a regular visitor to Edinburgh. Mackay has travelled to Bournemouth for meetings and Cherries performance director Jay Melette performed an audit of the Hibernian set-up. The Easter Road side will spend four days training with their English Premier League step cousins before playing a pre-season bounce game. The Black Knight representatives were as blown away as everyone else, meanwhile, by heartfelt renditions of ‘Sunshine on Leith’ after the wins over Hearts and Celtic.

“It’s the 150th anniversary of the club’s creation this year,” ponders Mackay. “It all stemmed from the docks and the disadvantaged area of Leith and there is a great history attached to this club.

“The Gordon family have embraced that massively, ploughing something like £24 million into the club since the day they took over in terms of infrastructure and backing managers and training facilities to make sure everything is as good as it can be. They stuck at it through really tough times.

“So when I see the last few weeks of the season and the happiness around the club I think to back to some of the abuse they took during the hard times and think to myself, ‘My god, they could easily have thrown the keys in’.

“That’s why it’s so satisfying to see fans singing ‘Sunshine on Leith’ or coming up to Ian [Gordon] and his mother Kit and thanking them for giving them memories to embrace.
“Over a period of time, Hibs is probably a club which hasn’t won as many things as we could have.

“Because of the size of the fan base, the stadium, the facilities, the capital city aspect, people want us to light the touch-paper and catch fire.

“And I want Hibs to be a badge people are proud of instead of a club where they’re looking in and saying, ‘What’s happening in there now?’”

Hibernian FC
Malky Mackay
Football