I still say there's a player in there that's being stifled by a shite manager and back room staff.

Never faulting the boys talent, but he never commits to a challenge or puts a tackle in at all in some instances. That's his big problem, if you can't do either of those things you can't play in Scottish football :

Was shocked to find out he played the 2nd half. Absolute ghost.

He will need to learn to demand the ball more if he's going to play there for us. Thought he did well in the first half and was involved in most of our good stuff, but was anonymous for long spells in the second.

Hopefully the second half drop off for the team as a whole was mainly down to fitness (spoiler: it probably wasn't )

Think you're bigging up this first half of his way too much tbh.

Think you're fairly desperate to criticise him at the best of times Greg, so not the best person to offer a balanced view tbf

“Did well” is hardly the most glowing of praise and I'm definitely not saying he was putting in a Cameronesque performance, but I felt he got on the ball and kept it moving pretty well.

Second half he was dug shite, along with about 2/3 of the team.

Went missing...again. You just cant count on him. He's a bottle merchant.

(07-12-2019, 09:14 PM)Dont You Fucking DARE Wrote: Think you're fairly desperate to criticise him at the best of times Greg, so not the best person to offer a balanced view tbf

“Did well” is hardly the most glowing of praise and I'm definitely not saying he was putting in a Cameronesque performance, but I felt he got on the ball and kept it moving pretty well.

Second half he was dug shite, along with about 2/3 of the team.

Saying he was involved in most of our good stuff? Not for me i'm afraid.

But you are right, I genuinely don't think he has the bottle to be a Hearts player. But I try to stay objective on him because he has a little bit about him.

Can hit a good penalty

Everything I expected from him in the middle of the park sadly :

(07-12-2019, 09:28 PM)Charlie Kelly Wrote: Everything I expected from him in the middle of the park sadly :

This is fuckin Scoatland. He's not going to get the five hours on the ball that he so clearly feels he deserves.

I think he's a good player, I really do. Every so often we get a glimpse of what he can do. Unfortunate, it's not very often we see it.

I think he could probably be a good centre midfielder, with a dirty bastard next to him to do all the dirty work. If haring for example was fit, he'd be doing all the dirty work to free up Clare to do the stuff he's good at.

Since day one we've seen he's never going to be able to compete physically, so chucking him in centre midfield with Irving, Mulraney and walker as his protection was a stupid move from Levein/Macphee.

To be fair, having 1 midfielder that's good on the ball next to some fucking rugby player hasn't been a viable strategy since about 1994.

Clare will always get punted out wide cos he's neither skillful enough nor tough enough to cut it in the middle of the park.

Neil McCann's take on it. A sentence he and many others will no doubt repeat throughout the season.

Even the pundits can see he's a diddy.

I'm just not sure what he's for.

He doesn't have great pace.
He doesn't take on a man and beat him.
He doesn't score many goals.
He doesn't make runs in behind defences.
He doesn't pick passes that unlock defences.
He doesn't put in particularly good crosses.
He doesn't compete physically.
He doesn't provide many assists in open play.
He doesn't provide many assists from set plays.
He doesn't dictate the tempo of a game at any point.

He does take a decent penalty.
He does go missing during most games.

Shows the odd bit of quality but struggling to see where he fits into the team.

Thought he was alright in the first half, less so in the second. Maybe he'll grow into a central role but hard to see it.

(07-12-2019, 10:21 PM)The Doctor of Thuganomics Wrote: I think he's a good player, I really do.

See, i'm not interested in whether he's a good player.

My simple question is, will he put in top perfomances for Hearts in the next two seasons, if the answer is no, then file him under Fitzroy Simpson and go get another Jamie Walker/Greg Stewart/Jason Cummings etc... e.g. a player that we know can do it up here but failed down south. Just bring them back and get on with it.

Gauld is another example. At one point he was quality for Dundee United - just give him the same conditions to flourish at Tynecastle instead of waiting around for players that aren't invested in our club to come good.

Aberdeen put a bid in for Mcgeouch last week (rejected though). What's Mulumbu up to? He can clearly perform in the SPFL. Get him in and get on with winning games instead of waiting around for dross to get good.

Don't take the above as me thinking Cummings or Mcgeouch are anything special. I just want players that ken their way around a pitch and have a bit of dig. It's not as hard as Levein is making it. Trying and failing to get all these bargain bin folk to come good.

On the other hand, we should not so readily dump our academy players onto the scrapheap. Some of these players may come good at 23/24 and there is no harm in keeping them on cheap wages until they mature. Robbie Neilson is a perfect example. Was rank until he was about 28 but we had him hang around like a bad smell because he had a good attitude and put in the work. We should be rewarding folk with heart and love for the club.

We'll probably release Irving in a year or so and bring in some Australian amatuer football player that only heard about us from a whatsapp invite. Some of these academy boys bleed maroon.

These discussions about what Clare contributes in centre mid remind me of the debates we used to have about Stephen Simmons back in the day It's amazing how much leeway the odd nice wee touch or through ball can get you.

I don't think he can play centre mid in this or any league. He'd probably be quite good playing off of the strikers, but to fit him in there we'd need to change our whole system to accommodate him, and I don't think he's good enough to justify that.

I also don't get what Levein sees in him - he's pretty much the epitome of 'not a Levein player'.

(07-13-2019, 09:37 AM)Makween Wrote: These discussions about what Clare contributes in centre mid remind me of the debates we used to have about Stephen Simmons back in the day It's amazing how much leeway the odd nice wee touch or through ball can get you.

I don't think he can play centre mid in this or any league. He'd probably be quite good playing off of the strikers, but to fit him in there we'd need to change our whole system to accommodate him, and I don't think he's good enough to justify that.

I also don't get what Levein sees in him - he's pretty much the epitome of 'not a Levein player'.

Pretty much spot on.

He's no Neil McFarlane, that's for sure.