ascender

I've also seen a post today from a Jambo who was hit by a coin thrown by one of their own fans which was meant for the pitch. Apparently this has happened a couple of times recently at Tynecastle. Its bizarre reading the different Scottish footy forums, its all about the Gers fans and very little about the actual footy. In an ideal world DM or similar would come out today and condone the throwing incident but stand up for us where appropriate.

Is it just me though, or is the problem worse amongst our traveling support?

I never heard the monkey noises on the TV, but I've seen that mentioned on a few sites this morning. As for the singing, apart from the Pope stuff which was going on, the Hearts fans still can't distinguish between that and the folk songs which have been given the all clear to sing. They should concentrate on getting their own house in order first, but its easy for them to use this to deflect this from their own problems at the moment.

Svensson did seem to improve yesterday to a degree. I mean, at least he wasn't taking any chances on the hole and was clearing his lines. Unfortunately, he just doesn't look good enough at the moment. I thought the same of Hutton tbh and I've been a big one for giving the guys time to improve, but how long do we give them? Hemdani seems to enjoy playing at centre half, so we need a commanding figure who is good in the air beside him. Its really a priority for PLG to get the defence in to a solid unit as I'm still nervous at every set piece we concede. I agree about the midfield. I think its the one area where we do have the personnel available, but like the strikers, we don't seem to be playing a formation which gets the most out of them. Clement, Fergie & Hemdani all have the potential to be quite negative players at time, so I don't think playing 2 or 3 of them in the middle has worked all the time. But then, if you have one holding, why not just reinforce to Fergie that he should be playing more as an attacking midfielder? As for up front, I'd rather we returned to 2 strikers, I think that would suit the players we have and allow them to do more link-up play between them. I've seen it a few times this year, we go to 2 up front and almost straight away you start to see the strikers with little knock-downs to each other and looking for each other in the box. That just doesn't seem to happen with the 3 up front. We don't have the players to play with a fluid frontline and sticking Novo out wide is a waste as he's not composed enough on the ball to make his final ball count.

That site sums up the "us against the world" paranoia that's going on down Tynecastle way at the moment. The only thing I would say is that our away support seem to be making the most of their chance to be heard at such matches and as such, its ruining the good work that has been achieved at Ibrox as regards some of the songs this season.

Silly season on the rumours again then. I always thought O'Connor could do well at a club like us, playing up front with someone like Boyd to play off him. A bit more of a direct striker who'll put his head to the ball. The Hearts rumours will continue for as long as Romanov goes about pissing off his first team. While there's a few players there who could probably do a job for us, we just don't have the money at the moment.

Why doesn't DM give us one last leaving present and dig deep for the fees to buy this pair? Give us something positive from this season to get the fans excited about. We can but dream.

I wonder when their contracts are up? By the sound of things, if we had the cash available, we could probably get in there early and get at least one of them signed.

Apparently Bain started talks with Hib yesterday. John Collins basically came out and said the players were worth 2-3M each which prompted this from their agent: He said: "It was with some interest I noted John's comments. I'm certainly not about to argue with someone so knowledgeable when it comes down to the value of a football player. "After all, there are surely not many people more qualified to assess such matters than someone with John's talent, wisdom and vast experience. "But it does make you stop and think. If Kevin and Scott are worth £2m or even £3m each, as John himself says, then why are Hibs paying them buttons? "That's the question I've been asking myself ever since I became their representative and why I've repeatedly been asking Rod Petrie to sit down with me and discuss the matter. "The players are in no rush to leave Hibs - they are more than happy to stay - but let's get real here, it's time the club rewarded them properly. "They cannot say on one hand they are multi-million pound players so as to frighten off other clubs and then on the other pay them the wages of players worth £250,000. "I hope now that John has made it clear how highly the club values Kevin and Scott, Rod will now agree the time has come for us to talk."

I think Buffel is a luxury we can't afford just now, could we get 1M for him? 500k for Ricksen and then with what's left over from PLG's current budget, we might stretch to 2M in total. Shame Klos won't be going until the summer as a combination of his and Ricksen's wages being off the sheet could make us stronger in January as regards being able to offer a staggered deal for any fees paid for new players.

Who knows what the real story is, but at the moment Burke is just a young lad with a lot of potential. In that Blue Heaven programme both him and his family came across as being thoroughly down to earth and normal sorts, so maybe he's just wanting to get back to to full fitness and then look at signing the new deal. If he is looking to move on a free or hold out for more wages, its a shitty way to treat the club who have shown a lot of faith in him.

I'd sign him if we got the chance, but it'll never happen. Why would I sign him? Simple. We need someone like him to sort out our defence and to lead the team on the pitch. I also think he's better suited to the SPL than any of our current centre halves.

I'd have thought it'll be a token 500K or so. TBH I think we should rip their arm off if we get any sort of cash offer and just cut our losses. Besides, the savings on the wage bill will come in handy too.

A couple of papers are today saying that we're going to get in early with a bid for the pair of young Hibs players. PLG is keen on landing them both, but as are a fair few of other clubs including Celtic. Whilst I'd love this story to be true and I don't actually doubt it for a second, how the hell are we going to be able to afford them????

I thought the same thing as a lot of people by the looks of it. It'll never happen, but if there was a chance to get Pressley, I'd jump at it. We need someone with his leadership on the pitch and also someone like him to organise our defence.

Funny you should mention that. one of the papers today had part of the interview with Murray and he seems to think all the protesting was about PLG rather than him. He also seemed to be annoyed that the protests were pre-meditated and all over the internet before the game.

IMO he'd walk in to our team just now, in any position. Depressing isn't it that the sort of players who'll go to the Championship in England rather than our SPL?

I think most people on here would agree 100%. Unfortunately we're just a small minority of the support. The only disappointing thing is just how bad things have become since he took over, just when we thought we couldn't get any worse than last season, we seem to plumb new depths.

But will there be any journos there who are willing to ask the tough questions?

I think we'll be more patient than most fans, but I don't think the majority at Ibrox will be. At the moment its looking like we're even worse than we were last year and if we hadn't had such a tough time last season then maybe there wouldn't be protests already. A lot of people have also said they'd give PLG a season to turn things around, but the problem with that is that we're rank rotten just now and the outlook is pretty grim.

A few places have said over the last few days that PLG might walk rather than outstay his welcome. Let's face it, he looks a broken man at the moment. As for Walter, why would he give up the Scotland job? Although he's obviously improved as a manager since leaving us and I wouldn't be surprised if DM would like to have him back. Just can't see it happening though.

He does need time, but we need to see progress on the pitch. Even if its not just results, we need to see that we're finally playing some better football. The thing is though, I don't think most Bears will be happy with that. Unless he starts winning, the protests will get much, much worse.

PLG's body language and the way he's been talking to the press recently don't really fill me with confidence either. I've always said he needs time, but I'm starting to think that we just don't have that kind of time and you've summed it up Cammy, he might just have come here at the wrong time. I think we need someone to get in there and kick up shit on the training field and sign some players who will really play for the jersey. A tired cliche, but most of our guys don't look interested these days. Someone who can really motivate our players. And also sign some leaders on the park, get some real team spirit going. The funny thing is though, that PLG seemed to have a good mix of everything you'd look for in a manager. But considering the guy ran the Marathon des Sables this year and has introduced more training sessions, how can the team also look so unfit?

I can't believe we all bought the crap he spouted last season after the protests. It all came to nothing. I have a funny feeling though that the protests aren't going to go away this season.

There's another couple of excellent articles on the Evening Times site tonight, well worth checking out.