lightwelter

Williams scored against Aberdeen in a 1-0 victory i seem to recall

Keith Watson is a right back, decent player and potential replacement for Raven if he leaves. Someone mention Keatings in an earlier post, he would be a brilliant signing and would really suit are system IMO. Sadly, it is highly unlikely that he would come here and pretty sure he's signed a new contract.

Gutted to hear Yogi say we will be losing 4 or 5 players at the end of the season, so lets hope he can do the goods in the transfer market like he does with the players. You certainly can't fault him bringing Tansey back which has proved to be an immense signing, and despite all of the moans and groans about not replacing McKay immediately, Ofere has been a very good signing so far. 

For me it's between Yogi and Neilson and it's very difficult to choose between them. McInnes has done an outstanding job but with much better resources than Yogi.

Despite Hearts going into administration they have made some pretty class signings this season, Sow, Zeefuik, Keatings, Ozturk, Eccersley, Buaben, Gomis. These are all players who are more than good enough for the SPL and so maybe we should've been expected that Hearts would dominate that league, but the style of play by which they did it means no-one would grudge Robbie winning the award.

Yogi meanwhile has had nothing to work with. He inherited a squad which everyone thought was already playing above themselves, only to change the style of play (which is a massive risk when the team was already playing well under Butcher's style) and make the team better. The semi-final was the cherry on the cake for me. Even with the ref decision taking the shine off it, our short passing game was ideal to take advantage of having the extra man and IMO we haven't got the credit we deserve for beating Celtic by being brave enough to get on the ball and pass it. 

Hard one to call, Neilson building a squad and implementing a good style of play whilst dominating the championship vs Hughes working with what he was given and implementing an attractive style of play, finishing 3rd (fingers crossed) and winning the scottish cup (fingers crossed). 

Is the game televised? Live in Edinburgh and can't attend. 

Ofere tired towards the end but getting 90 minutes under his belt will do him a lot of good. He caused Celtic problems with his strength, and you can't complain with two goals from two starts. Deserves to start in the semi final. 

It's great to go into next week with a bit more optimism, especially considering that today, despite our excellent work rate and defending, I don't think we actually think we played that well. The passing could have been better and we didn't work the keeper much. The dynamics of the game next week will be much different. We'll be playing on a big pitch so it will be harder to get in their faces, but if we break quickly it could work in our favour.

Buzzing for round 2, let's make it two finals in successive seasons!

You may well be correct but we might have to take that risk, although it seems unlikely now. Very disappointing if we don't get anyone in but there's no point signing players to make up the numbers. 

Certainly wouldn't grudge signing him, he's got loads of experience and has played at a much higher level than the SPL. Would surely score plenty of goals for us. 

I actually saw all the lads getting onto the bus after the game in Edinburgh as I go to uni here, didn't know what the score was but could tell they got humped from the grim looks of their faces. 

Hearts under 20's have been struggling so it's a poor result, although they have much more emphasis on bringing through young players than us, not to mention the standard of their facilities. Several of the players in the Hearts line-up, I would imagine, will go on to play first team football and are legitimate prospects (Ian Flanagan, L Smith, Robbie Buchanan, Liam Henderson, Gary Oliver etc), while I'd be surprised if even two or three made the jump for us.  

Completely hypothetical, but I think Keats would be an ideal replacement for Billy McKay. Really similar type of player, very agile, links up play well, and has proven he can play up-top on his own. With Hearts having Sow, Zeefuik, Carrick and Oliver, it may be that they will look to offload one of them. Thoughts?

 

A very important part of any players life. Do our "U20" squad have a professionally supervised strength and conditioning programme built into their "education"?   

Agreed - and also a difficult aspect to manage within the context of the year of a footballer or indeed many other team sport players. The problem is that football has no obvious "peak" and players need effectively to be at a high level of performance for the entire season. Apart from a few weeks' pre-season, this leaves little scope to have periods of the year where players can focus on strength or top up endurance which must be a nightmare from a coaching point of view.

Coming from an athletics background where you can identify a relatively small number of targeted peaks, I don't envy the dilemma of football coaches. For instance, when there is a game every weekend (and sometimes midweek) of the season which is no less important than most others, how do you programme in your SandC? At one end of the week you need some recovery from the previous match and at the other you don't want to let it run too close to the next one. The same goes for topping up aspects of running related fitness although games do contribute here, and all of this is on top of the time needed to work on teachical and team aspects of the game.

On the other hand there is the option of "double sessions" which are a perfectly viable consideration for full time professionals with no constraints of a day job to manipulate training requirements round.

 

Full time players should be able to manage at least two strength based sessions a week you would think, I'd imagine this is the minimum of what they do in the EPL. As for programming the S&C, there would be a lot of focus on injury prevention, reducing eccentric load close to games, and I'd imagine relatively little conditioning sessions if the actual football training they get is enough to keep them ticking over. All of this would probably require someone in a full time position. I'd be interested to know what the average training week looks like and how the season is "periodised". 

 

To be fair a lot of our first team certainly look like they spend time in the gym. Watkins seems to have filled out, plus Warren, Tansey etc. But can't say the same for the players coming through the academy like Christie and Polworth. 

Just out of curiosity. Several clubs in the top flight and championship have some sort of sport science department or staff, e.g. Hearts, and Celtic who have sports scientists at academy and first team level. Does anyone know who takes the team for strength and conditioning or if we have a "first team sport scientist/S&C coach"

Kelvin Jack (Dundee keeper)

bougherra

Scott McDonald 

Juanjo's goal vs Hibs from the tightest of angels.

Liam Keogh vs Clyde on second last game of season we got promoted.