Jamestown

[Cammo Toe 2]

Still in a bad mood from last night. Admitted. But has Jamestown REALLY been what we started to believe? 

Schwollow. Kyziridis. Braga. PASS

Findlay. DEL

Kabangu. Ageu. Borch. Kerjota. Kabore. McEntee. Magnusson. Mato. Altena. Chesnokov. Leonard. DUNNO!?

There's not many in that list I'd miss if they left tomorrow. And when you put Ageu into the mix - this is a record breaking investment season in recruitment by Hearts. And guys like Halkett, Devlin, Shankland have really been the spine of the team, and were already here.

With Bloom's contacts and two major clubs bigger than us. Where even have the loan signings been? A young left winger or physical CF in January? Nothing. 

And our entire right flank has been an open wound all season, and still is.

The clubs looking at Kyziridis will be having doubts but I'm sure Braga will go for decent money. Leaving behind him a bloated squad in numbers and can't see us moving on many on that list above for decent money.

Think I need my confidence in this model built back up again. But again, still raging from last night TBF.

[Zizou]

We’re 6 months into it and top of the league.

I’d imagine signing players and then playing others ahead of them in the wrong position will be becoming a concern behind the scenes.

[1500 Dollars a Day]

Still in a bad mood from last night. Admitted. But has Jamestown REALLY been what we started to believe? 

Schwollow. Kyziridis. Braga. PASS

Findlay. DEL

Kabangu. Ageu. Borch. Kerjota. Kabore. McEntee. Magnusson. Mato. Altena. Chesnokov. Leonard. DUNNO!?

There's not many in that list I'd miss if they left tomorrow. And when you put Ageu into the mix - this is a record breaking investment season in recruitment by Hearts. And guys like Halkett, Devlin, Shankland have really been the spine of the team, and were already here.

With Bloom's contacts and two major clubs bigger than us. Where even have the loan signings been? A young left winger or physical CF in January? Nothing. 

And our entire right flank has been an open wound all season, and still is.

The clubs looking at Kyziridis will be having doubts but I'm sure Braga will go for decent money. Leaving behind him a bloated squad in numbers and can't see us moving on many on that list above for decent money.

Think I need my confidence in this model built back up again. But again, still raging from last night TBF.

This is a bit of a knee jerk m8

You can be disappointed with last night and where that leaves us with the title but these players have had us tap of the league for majority of the season so it can’t be all that bad.

[Giza Brek]

Nothing to do with Jamestown, last night was on Del for me, players looked fucked as well, I couldn't get over how bad Milne was and how leggy he looked for me, the man has been a machine all season.

I'd be interested to know what's been happening over that two week break, while celtic build momentum playing every other day we've came back a bottom 6 looking outfit.

[1500 Dollars a Day]

We’re 6 months into it and top of the league.

I’d imagine signing players and then playing others ahead of them in the wrong position will be becoming a concern behind the scenes.

It will be interesting to see where it leaves Del end of season. If we win it he goes to Scotland imo but if we don’t I wonder what the JTA/Bloom opinion will be that there seemed to be a lack of full trust in the players that were made available to him.

Altena for me is still the biggest head scratcher, makes no sense at all and sounds like it was a significant fee paid.

[Cammo Toe 2]

This is a bit of a knee jerk m8

You can be disappointed with last night and where that leaves us with the title but these players have had us tap of the league for majority of the season so it can’t be all that bad.

I admit emotion. 

Maybe also buying into the everyone else has been awful argument now.

Have we actually really hammered anyone all season?

Dunno. Need us to blow Dundee and Livingston away. Some players looking like 50k signings now.

[Cammo Toe 2]

It will be interesting to see where it leaves Del end of season.  If we win it he goes to Scotland imo but if we don’t I wonder what the JTA/Bloom opinion will be that there seemed to be a lack of full trust in the players that were made available to him.

Altena for me is still the biggest head scratcher, makes no sense at all and sounds like it was a significant fee paid.

800k

[Billy Butcher]

I’d say that if you take our crop of JTA signings they are better than Joe Savage taking punts on Aussies or whatever we used to do.

The problem is they don’t come with a track record so a lot of the time Del isn’t convinced, therefore he is ramming square pegs into round holes.

[Giza Brek]

I admit emotion. 

Maybe also buying into the everyone else has been awful argument now.

Have we actually really hammered anyone all season?

Dunno. Need us to blow Dundee and Livingston away. Some players looking like 50k signings now.

People will need to get this out of their head, that simply is not going to happen. If we win the two it will be by the skin of our teeth.

We've toiled against Livi twice already and that was when they were worse than they are now and we were better.

[1500 Dollars a Day]

I admit emotion. 

Maybe also buying into the everyone else has been awful argument now.

Have we actually really hammered anyone all season?

Dunno. Need us to blow Dundee and Livingston away. Some players looking like 50k signings now.

Some players are 50k signings - was Mags not about that?

I don’t think it’s a case everyone has been awful, Falkirk have strengthened the league, Motherwell have been ridic boasting one of the best defensive records in Europe, hibs have been decent enough. It’s actually been a very competitive league this season I’d say the only teams that are properly underperforming are the OF and Aberdeen. The rest are either where they should be or performing better. Livi are rotten but you’d probably expect them to be and still managed to take points of rangers.

I don’t think the JTA signings are necessarily meant to be these guys who come in and absolutely steamroll teams. Hearts have been really good this season and winning games by doing the basics very well - JTA have provided players on the whole who do that

Im very disappointed about the lack of faith in Altena but there’s not really any players come in from JTA who I’d say is a bad player apart from Kabore. I feel bad saying it but he does look genuinely hopeless running about and trying to control the ball. Kerjota/mato/borch we can’t comment on because they’ve not been played enough (think Kerjota looks half decent whenever he does play and can deliver a brilliant baw) and we’ve been very unlucky with Ageu’s injuries.


FWIW I don’t think kabangu is terrible either and I’d much rather he was getting minutes over Kabore. He’s offside a lot but I think he looks far tidier a player when you don’t have shanks.

[CritchSmile]

Ridiculous Cammo

[Widespread Gang Violence]

We’re 6 months into it and top of the league.

Close the thread now tbh.

I expect that if we’d been playing more of the JTA players at all / playing them in their correct positions, we’d be doing even better. The system appears to be based on incremental improvements, anyway; it’s a long term project.

The concern at the moment (insofar as it’s a concern at all) is that a large number of the “big money” signings (Ageu, Altena, Mato etc) won’t have increased their transfer value since coming to Hearts.

[CritchSmile]

We need more Tagawa and Kye Rowles

[Konnichiwa You Cunt]

It’s not a Jamestown problem but there is a perception problem with the fans’ standards IMO. Del has Heart of Midlothian top of the league with 8 games to go and people think he’s underperforming

IMO if you took away the Jamestown ‘brand’ from the signings and looked at the squad as if it had been put together by Del/Jonesy/Savage, we’d be saying it’s good enough to compete for 3rd but there would be zero expectation of a title challenge. As much as I like them, Hearts will be the pinnacle of the vast majority of our starting team’s careers. Our standout players are still Shankland, Halkett and Beni - all 3 of them have been available for free in the last year or two and nobody has fancied them. Even Schwollow who’s played in the Bundesliga was unemployed for a couple months before we picked him up.

Even with Celtic and Rangers having poor seasons, they still each have players who will go to a top league for 8 figure fees. That just digs them out of enough holes that we can’t match.

Fully believe Jamestown will get us there but it hasn’t delivered a title winning squad in year 1 (which was never the expectation anyway). Still think January was a massive missed opportunity though. Part of what they do is taking the emotion out of it and trusting the data but someone needed to step in and say ‘actually fuck the project for the next 6 months, this is a unique situation and we just need 4-5 known quantities to get us over the line to summer’. Maybe a lack of flexibility with the model or it’s too early and the Hearts guys aren’t comfortable telling them to change the plans yet, who knows. Feels a big missed opportunity though.

[Konnichiwa You Cunt]

FWIW saying all that I still think we’ve got a great chance of winning it this season Last night was a shocker but we’re more likely to beat a top 4 side with Shankland and Devlin playing than a bottom 2 side without them at the moment. If they’re both back for the run in we can do it.

[Billy Butcher]

It’s not a Jamestown problem but there is a perception problem with the fans’ standards IMO. Del has Heart of Midlothian top of the league with 8 games to go and people think he’s underperforming

IMO if you took away the Jamestown ‘brand’ from the signings and looked at the squad as if it had been put together by Del/Jonesy/Savage, we’d be saying it’s good enough to compete for 3rd but there would be zero expectation of a title challenge. As much as I like them, Hearts will be the pinnacle of the vast majority of our starting team’s careers. Our standout players are still Shankland, Halkett and Beni - all 3 of them have been available for free in the last year or two and nobody has fancied them. Even Schwollow who’s played in the Bundesliga was unemployed for a couple months before we picked him up.

Even with Celtic and Rangers having poor seasons, they still each have players who will go to a top league for 8 figure fees. That just digs them out of enough holes that we can’t match.

Fully believe Jamestown will get us there but it hasn’t delivered a title winning squad in year 1 (which was never the expectation anyway). Still think January was a massive missed opportunity though. Part of what they do is taking the emotion out of it and trusting the data but someone needed to step in and say ‘actually fuck the project for the next 6 months, this is a unique situation and we just need 4-5 known quantities to get us over the line to summer’. Maybe a lack of flexibility with the model or it’s too early and the Hearts guys aren’t comfortable telling them to change the plans yet, who knows. Feels a big missed opportunity though.

We actually don’t know if these project players are good enough though because they are getting 5 minutes her and there or one game and then benched in favour of ‘known quantities’ who are played out of position.

I know Del is your boy, but there is a genuine issue with the fact he’d rather play the 5th choice CH at RB and literally anyone but our RMs at RM. The state of the right has side isn’t due to a lack of players, it’s due to a lack of players the manager trusts.

[CritchSmile]

That performance last night was unacceptable under Critchley, never mind Del.

Falkirk pumped them 5-1 last game out. Of course McCann/Dodds would be working on a new shape, but c'mon tae fuck.

[Ousmak Sembène]

I think there's a bit of a misconception people have with Jamestown where they think every player is meant to be a superstar who we sell on for £10 million. The calculation is that these guys are mostly cheap and therefore not that big a gamble. Some won't pay off at all, others will do a job at this level, a few will be sold off at a big enough profit to cover all the others. From that perspective the only failure (so far) is Ageu. Otherwise, if we sell Braga for £5 million or above, that already covers pretty much everyone else.

[Zizou]

I think we’ll see some huge improvements this summer as we move further into Jamestown. Midfield particularly will be a big focus with Beni and Devlin leaving and massive question marks over Ageu.

This is the worst we’ll ever be under Jamestown. It’s very exciting. It may eventually require a manager with a different approach to make it a real success though but for now Del is brilliant.

[CritchSmile]

I think there's a bit of a misconception people have with Jamestown where they think every player is meant to be a superstar who we sell on for £10 million. The calculation is that these guys are mostly cheap and therefore not that big a gamble. Some won't pay off at all, others will do a job at this level, a few will be sold off at a big enough profit to cover all the others. From that perspective the only failure (so far) is Ageu. Otherwise, if we sell Braga for £5 million or above, that already covers pretty much everyone else.

Yep, all these boys wont be here for season 26/27.

For example, I would not be at all suprised if Kabore and Chesnekov were moved on in the summer.