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I’m sitting watching the hearts v Sunderland game and I have to say the way we have played in the past 2 games is miles more entertaining than this muck. Hearts keep launching the ball up the park and into Channels and Sunderland aren’t much better although are trying to play a wee bit.(they will be relegated by Xmas) i think im becoming Askou-ized

Just heard JBA talking about the Ranger's game: "Next week we have some neighbours over for dinner. Let's hope we enjoy dinner the most" So maybe your chips will be fine.

There’s definitely a time for the long ball or taking the chance of getting the ball into the box but that’s what the players have to learn, making the right decision between retaining possession and taking a risk. Our normal over the past few years has involved no such decision making, it’s just been hoof the ball up and chase it.

What I'm saying about the seeding is that whether you like it or not, there's no point in worrying about it because our history shows it has made little (if any) difference to our progress in the competition. Personally, I think that by the time you reach the knockout stages in a cup competition there should be no seeding, but others may disagree. I'm not even a fan of the best runners up, tbh, but we just have to get on with it and keep winning.

The Bluenose must have forgotten that they qualified from the same group as us the first year they changed the format in the 2016/17 competition.

Stama

A good summing up. I'd rate Hertha as being somewhere between Hearts/Aberdeen and Celtic. They didn't look 100% match fit though as fans of German football on here will know. A draw was a reasonable outcome as we finished strongly after a slow start. We played some good football but too often the final ball wasn't quite right. That might come. Fadinger and McGinn were my MOTMs. Now onto lessons learned (again some might say). We lack physicality in midfield and up front. To me, Watt, Fadinger and Slattery are all a wee bit similar and we need a solid physical defensive midfielder in the battle zone to halt central midfield runners in their tracks. How will Just fare against the likes of the Gogics, O'Haras and Devlins of the Premiership world? Ap Stam ran his socks off but to no effect - he is a penalty box striker, possibly a good one, end of. We need a big target man up front. Tonight I thought our passing from midfield to set up attacks was a bit slow. All too often the chance to catch a retreating Hertha was lost due to dilatory decision making and execution. All that said we played not too badly. The new style will take time to implement. Hopefully speed comes later. Hertha had some decent players and I liked the look of Toni Leistner. I believe we only had 4 subs due to another team comprising young players, fringe players and trialists(?) playing Hertha's B team this afternoon. 0-0 draw from what I heard. A good workout and not your usual friendly.

Technically you could see they were better but got to say how many direct shots did they get on our keeper ? I think we handled them reasonably well still plenty room for improvement but going in the right direction. Still a wee bit too over elaborate in and around the penalty box but that is a minor criticism. Excellent turn out from the Hertha Berlin fans btw.

Been saying that for ages, give him run in team and avoid injuries and he will get us goals

It’s all ifs and buts just now. For what it’s worth, I didn’t rate Stama even before the transfer talk, so that’s definitely shaping my view that any profit is good profit. Either way, we need a new starting CF.