Pool Q

That would involve a fee of c.£1.1m. Doubt Rangers would even get half that.

A report of connected events, real or imaginary, and selected by the narrator, to create a representation of a situation or process. Any Neil Lennon interview will make clear the importance of the highlighted bit. Whether Motherwell actually were thuggish last night I've no idea.

Probably was technically offside in the build up to the goal, but a very close call and it’s understandable that the focus has been on the failure of the officials to see the ball was over the line. Farcical, looking at the highlights. The Stevenson handball was a penalty, but after the disallowed Hibs goal, we can hardly complain about that. A poor game that neither team deserved to win.

Little, if any, quality on offer from either side tonight. Two ordinary (at best) teams, although some allowance can be made for it being a derby which usually tend to be more about blood and snotters than silky football. For Hearts about all you can say is we didn't get beat, we'll play a whole lot better and lose. Berra was once again superb, carrying far too many of his team mates. Having seen the images it was clearly a goal, and really not acceptable for that to happen in what is a big game in our league.

I said about a year ago that Morgan was a player Hearts should be looking at rather than the bunch of duds Cathro brought in. Not sure we could have afforded him or he would have been interested, but we should have tried. On Naismith, I reckon he’ll head to Rangers. Some players are prepared to take a sizeable pay cut to move back home, two examples being Berra and Lafferty (OK we maybe subsequently found out why in his case) at Hearts.

Just two 16 year olds I think - Cochrane and McDonald. Brandon is 19, and there were a couple of U20 players on the bench (Keena and Moore).

It’s a strange league this season. Celtic are (let’s be honest) much better than everyone else, and yet they are just two points ahead of Aberdeen. They will probably kick on once out of Europe, but this is fun at the moment. Rangers are a club in disarray with a (frankly) rotten team, but when all is said and done they are only 5 points behind Celtic’s history making team. Hearts seem to be improving, as are Killie. Hibs are, the media and their manager assure us, the bestest team ever, and they and Motherwell can certainly give any team in the league a game. The quality often isn’t great, but it’s a whole lot livelier than it has been for a while.

Brutal hangover today, too old for all that nonsense. Quite a day at Tynecastle, no one saw that coming. There had been a slight improvement recently, and the youngsters really do look good, but still turned up expecting the usual. Full rendition of party songs from the Sellick fans (which we got), sundry bookings, sendings off and dodgy decisions from Collum (not at all, to be fair), and a 3 or 4 nil skelping (well yes, but...). Cochrane rightly getting loads of praise, along with Milinkovic and Lafferty (played well, never really going to warm to him) but our best and most important player was, as every week, Berra. We were lucky Brown wasn’t playing mind.

Breathtaking.

Was Wright not on the offensive the other day about St Johnstone being the subject of unfair criticism, and not being given credit to what I’m pretty sure he referred to as their recent uptake in form? Never mind that, we are playing Celtic on Sunday with Willie Collum as ref. Hearts player sent off, Levein sent to the stand, soft penalty to Celtic, Scott Brown not even booked after taking a baseball bat to one of our young lads in midfield, and 3-0 ‘tic. Second half will be even worse.

No we didn't. We were so bad we made a shit team look slightly less shit.

Plenty, as Biffer says. Hogg is suspect in defence and under the high ball according to them. David Barnes (a Scottish journalist) was prominent, saying Scotland were lucky to have two players in the original Lions party, citing the England game and Glasgow’s humping by Saracens as evidence that their players weren’t up to it. Gatland and Farrell wittered on about wanting payers that were ‘winners’ who weren’t happy with just being in the team, and that Scotland had overachieved as a team which didn’t have many good players etc. Plenty swallowed this guff.

And one of the home games is the replay against Raith at Tynecastle.

Copied from Twitter, haven’t checked accuracy. Hearts last thirteen Scottish Cup ties: Hearts v Celtic Hearts v Hibs Hibs v Hearts Hearts v Celtic Hearts v Celtic Hearts v Aberdeen Hearts v Hibs Hibs v Hearts Raith v Hearts Hearts v Raith Hearts v Hibs Hibs v Hearts Hearts v Hibs

Just for a second it looked like Hogg was clear. Raised the level of intensity and performance several notches from the Samoa game. Feared the worst when Nel went off and the replacements required mounted. When the ABs destroyed our scrum it felt like the same old same old. Compete for 40 minutes, end up losing by 20+. Considering some of the players we had on the field at the end it was a brilliant effort. Watching Gray, Watson, Barclay and Hogg match if not outperform their AB opppnents made me think of the Lions party in the summer and how many (including on here) talked our players down in that context. Hogg not good enough to play against the ABs according to some. Anyway, looking forward to another day out at Murrayfield this Saturday.

They have. I think one factor in this is that Thistle are desperate for the game to go ahead too, so (despite being entitled to do so) they as a club haven’t complained much, if at all, about the way Hearts have handled this. Feel sorry for their fans though. Looking forward to the game now, the last couple of weeks has been enough of a distraction that I’ve almost forgotten how poor we’ve been recently.

Totally agree.

Last I heard there is another, final, inspection tomorrow at some point. Poor really, even if Hearts and Edinburgh Council are prepared to leave this to the very last minute It's a shoddy way to treat Partick Thistle. No idea of the rules and regulations, but if game doesn't get the go ahead tomorrow Thistle should be awarded the points. Considering where we were such a sort time ago, it's genuinely amazing that we are about to open a new stand, at Tynecastle, and have a ground with a 20,000 capacity. Big picture, it's all positive. But the past month or so has been very badly handled by Budge and those running the club.

They could be worse. They could be better. Probably a bit of both. Impossible to tell in advance. Chances are they'll get paid less.

It was feckin’ freezing at Murrayfield yesterday. Good to see such a big crowd, and a win was important, but Scotland were pretty awful against an ordinary side. Aimless kicking, disjointed and sloppy in attack, and not good enough in defence. Good teams would have taken care of us. A lot of new players tried out, but we are now struggling to field a genuinely international class front row with the loss of Nel. Multiple substitutions on sixty minutes (having already lost Nel) seemed preplanned and a bit brainless, changed a game we looked like taking control of into a closely fought game that could have gone either way. Hopefully Townsend has a better plan for next weekend.

Spoilsport.

What little atmosphere there was in the stadium came from the Killie fans, who clearly made a day of it and enjoyed themselves. Honking would once again fairly describe Hearts. Our game plan (such as it is) seems to be a strange combination of ineptly trying to play it out from the back, followed by a long howf forward to Lafferty and Isma, both of whom seemed a yard short of pace and surprised to see the ball heading in their general direction. Got what we deserved. Had Isma scored when through on the keeper might well have won, but would have been a bit of a travesty.

Even in a pretty crowded field, Hughes must be the ultimate 'How the feck does he keep getting decent jobs?' of them all. Always struck me as a nice bloke. But clueless.

No one is more responsible for where Hearts are on the field than Levein. Largely because he persuaded a dubious Budge to appoint Cathro in the first place, and then had to be forced by her to sack Cathro after the LC games. So he is very much to blame. None of which alters the reality that Cathro was incompetent and utterly out of his depth.

Just about everyone that watched his teams play every week is 100% aware that's why he was sacked. Incompetence, plain and simple.