joewarkfanclub

Hard to see us winning this one with the form we are in currently but Hearts have also struggled at home against poorer opposition than us. Id happily take a point. Not so sure we will get it though, unless the officials decide to throw us an unlikely bone!

Longelo for me too. Was the only real out ball in the first half and made a lot of good runs going forward. Nicholson, Priestman and McGhee were all decent when they came on, but werent on the pitch long enough to influence MOTM.

Falkirk (and McGlynn) did a number on us again today. Their press was very clever. They waited time and again for the ball to go to our full backs (mostly SOD) which triggered them to go mob handed to close the full back and the midfielders that side blocking off all the available outballs other than back the way or over the top. They were more than happy for Ward or the CBs to have the ball. We struggled with it all afternoon and it caused a fair amount of disruption to our usual passing / possession game. That said, the goals we lost were all very poor. The first is a free header with Fadinger being the culprit for losing his man (he hasnt been at all himself wearing that mask. I do wonder if it obstructs his vision). The second comes from the aforementioned press, but should have been cleared by McGinn and/or Watt who plays a totally blind pass putting Ward in trouble. The third just isnt a penalty, or there would be 20 penalties a game. Overall we had 14 shots to their 12 with 5 on target to their 4. So even though we were off it in terms of performance and Falkirk deserved to win, the stats for us werent horrific. The fine margins are going against us at the moment, so we are going to have to dig deep and find a performance from somewhere. Slightly concerned that there was no Eyrhor today as it left the bench looking very weak. Although I did think Priestman, Nicholson and McGhee all looked decent when they came on. Maybe we need to freshen the starting 11 up next week?

No, he appears to be available. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c070d7v7nj7o

Good piece of business. A good full back at our level and probably still room to develop. Hopefully the sign of things to come.

I get that you are trying to beat the drum for impartiality and fairness and I commend you for it. But we dont live in an ideal world. We all know this. So until we do, I think its fair enough to be annoyed.....

The lesser spotted SFA Referee's Compliance Officer. Nice to know they still exist!

I didnt mean defending his actions. Maybe I should have said "raising concerns regarding the level of punishment and its implications for the wider game......"

I think Oscar deserves a start, but Nicholson is probably more like Slattery from a style/creativity point of view.

Exactly this. Diving to gain a penalty is cheating and gains an advantage for your team. I dont see the difference, but it happens all the time (including by our players).

If its not being made up on the hoof, Id love to see the regulations outlining the wording of the offence and what the penalty should be. As others have said. We have VAR now. The red card should never have been given and if they send the ref to the monitor, Slattery gets a yellow. The fact they f#cked up and we have a player with 2+2 game suspension is ridiculous. The club dealt with Slattery internally, so this just feels pretty harsh.

Bit of a strange take. You say it "should be a red card offence", I agree, only it isnt at the moment. As someone, who openly criticised Slattery at the time and was embarassed by his actions, I have no issue with him being retrospectively punished. But the punishment has to fit the crime, and shouldnt just be made up on the hoof to make an example out of someone retrospectively. If that had happened no one would really argue, but this seems unfair and OTT, so no surprise some of our fans are leaping to the defence of our player.

Id rather have Luca Ross at LB than Ewan Wilson. Decent lad, but he doesnt have what it takes for the top level or he would be smashing it out the park at Raith Rovers, and he isnt. Koutroumbis is a better RB than Sparrow and he is definitely a better LB. I get that he is the one out of contract and could be the makeweight to freshen up the squad, but you just need to look at what happened with injuries and suspensions this season to see tge value of versatile players.

The issue for me was that Kettlewell signed him and then froze him out. If he didnt fit his style, why sign him? Quite baffling behaviour.

I think you are right. I didnt really think we were in with a genuine chance of winning the title, but just talking about the possibility and thinking about whether I could handle that had me quite emotional. Saturday, I was just fully focussed on 4th place, so there was a nervousness attached to that as well. All compounded by the fact you could see Hibs were forcing us wide and instead of bringing Eythor on to attack crosses we continued to play through the middle. The Scotland games will be a welcome diversion for the next 10 days or so.