buster.

If we don't make fairly rapid short-term strides then that in itself would be a lot more damaging than how you see a 3 year kit deal. The truth of it that we are desperate for short-term finance. The important aspect to it is that we invest/spend it more wisely this time.

The fundamental is to get an effective manager in who can be the head of a football operation that can improve players. It's not easy given the level of pressure for immediate success but you have a situation where 'immediate demands' are actually holding us back.

A good manager, a good pre-season, fit players played in the right position and Dorrans would be one of several players already at the club that would be like 'new signings'.

You have to feel almost sorry for the poor souls who follow Hearts away from home or in other words, to watch buses being parked badly.

It was 3 important points and serves to switch attention away from the lows of last week. I think Murty is now 'window dressing' and the players are pretty much motivating themselves. I'd imagine they'll want to show that they can compete this coming weekend and we'll at least be in their faces. We are fragile at the back, no doubt and that isn't going to be resolved in what is left of this season. We'll have to aim to score more goals than we concede.

He'll be 30 in November and hasn't featured for a few weeks. Given our recent record of bringing in 30 year old+ players who for one reason or another are about to 'break down', I'd hope that the bulk of new players are a fair bit younger than Arfield. As Frankie aludes to, we need to start buying this type of player when he is 22-24 (or younger) and he has a career in front of him. Obviously, to do that we need to start improving more players.

The vitriolic tone which he uses throughout takes away from some of the points he makes that aren't that far off the mark. Regards the tone and language, he's crossed a line with that today. Any pretence of objectivity is rendered ridiculous.

We have to treat it as an opportunity. By my calculations, if the sheep beat Hearts on the Friday, we'd need a draw to 'spoil the party'.

That'll be our easiest game of the post-split. We'll need to improve a lot on today but at least it's something to build on for the last 4 games.

So up until today you were the Brechin City of the GPL ?

Much better second half. We wanted the win more, brought a lot of effort to the game and deserved the points, which are vital to stop the rot wrt the battle for second place. Cummings first goal was written in the stars. I even had a crafty one pound on it at 4/1 for entertaiment

Real end of season feel to it. All neutrals will have turned this off before 15 minutes were past. Hearts aren't really interested. We have huffed and puffed without any cohesive guile. Cummings can't seem to do what Morelos does but then we kind of knew that.

Cummings should freshen things up and it'll be interesting to see how he goes in the Morelos role because I doubt the system will be different. Docherty needed taking out of the midfield for a bit IMO, Holt is usually fairly steady. Don't know why Dorrans stays where he is. He should play further forward or not at all. It's all about attitude............

Hearts line-up out first Lafferty and Nasmith start

Just for the record, Hearts have a poor Away record this season. They have only won 4 out of 17 games and 3 of those were before the clocks went back in October 2017. Their wins came at Kilmarnock (under Lee McCulloch), twice at Hamilton and once up at Ross County. Our Home record in the League has also been poor, with only one more win (8) than defeats (7), only two draws (one of those was a 0-0 draw against Hearts back in August). Both sides tend to get better results elsewhere, ie. us away from home and Hearts, at home. Hearts don't really have anything tangible to play for except for perhaps a win bonus whilst we are contesting second place. However, I think it's actually more about how much this group of players want a win for themselves and if they have the mentality to take the situation on. I don't really think Murty will have much to do with it, I think he's now 'window dressing'.

At times Hibs battered a side that looked flat and not particularly interested but you can count on them being up for the game next week. It's frustrating that we didn't make a decent managerial appointment post MW and get some consistency of result going this season because had we done so, we'd have been challenging a Celtic side that have been generally mediocre this season. Unlikely but I wouldn't dismiss Motherwell in the Cup Final against a Celtic side that do have weaknesses. -------------- Positive about the Aberdeen win is that it is now very unlikely we'll drop down as far as 5th.....but we really need to win ourselves tomorrow or 4th becomes a very real possibility.

Spanish Cup Final tonight, Sevilla v Barcelona Live on Spanish council TV !! Having a cursory look at the league table and if 3 results in coming week or so go a certain way, Barcelona could clinch the league when Real Madrid visit Catalonia.....at least by my calculations. It would need Atletico Madrid to win their next two league games (by far from a gimme as they have a Europa League semi-final to think about)...and Barcelona to avoid defeat in their one league game prior to 'El Classico'.

Would be good to go there and beat them on such a day.

I think I saw Derek McInnes in the betting at 80/1.

Extremely doubtful given he seems to have retired from football other than pick up his wage. He'll have 18 months left on his contract when his loan finishes and we'll probably be looking at trying to find another loan deal but picking up most of the wage this time.

I think (hope) his loan deal extends up until the end of the year.

I'd agree with a fair bit of that but add that appointing a decent manager and signing the right quality players are something that has been beyond us for quite sometime. In other words, to take a step-up is no given, it's only a possibility and IMO the probability is that any real 'step-up' will come in increments. But that is guesswork and a lot depends on finances, which just as the First Team, need a lot of work. The summer could be "exciting", in that I'd think there will probably be a lot of change at various levels. What that actually brings won't be exciting in a 1986 sense but it's more what it may lead to that might give us reason for optimism.

Someone should tell David Ornstein, the BBC reporter who is big on Arsenal. In his analysis, he speaks of 7 possibilities, Rodgers doesn't even get mentioned. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/43841645 Dermott Desmond was talking his manager up in the press yesterday, safe in the knowledge that Arsenal (or any other big club) would take one look at what Rodgers can't do in Europe (with Liverpool and Celtic) and ignore him. Rodgers is in a comfort zone up in Scotland where his ego constantly gets massaged and the media are so in awe that they don't take him to task for repeated European debacles where he isn't able to learn or adapt from experience. If he goes back down South, it'd be a matter of time and the David Brent comparisons would be getting dusted down from a few years ago.