The Song Remains the Same
Meh
Football fans don’t deal in years, our calendar begins in August and ends in May (thanks Nick Hornby). But at the very least the conclusion of 2025 will allow us another opportunity to relive the Scottish Cup victory. That’s the positives out of the way.
My last post a few weeks back took a fairly positive tone I’d say. It was immediately followed by a 2-1 win over Kilmarnock, however defeats have now followed, admittedly in tough places to Sparta Prague, Celtic and now Hibs. A point against Dundee Utd at home on Saturday sees us hit the mid-point of the season on 25pts.
Hibs Thoughts
I don’t have the time or energy to watch back full games anymore but I did watch the opening 20 minutes of the second-half to see if there was anything major to pick up on, given that Hibs turned the screw in this period of the match.
Jimmy lamented the transitions and you can obviously see why. From my perspective you seem to have a bit of a disjointed midfield and a back line too nervous to commit to anything.
Between the Lines
The first two images are in more settled possession where the Hibs midfielder has been able to find a little pocket of space behind the Aberdeen midfield and is then able to drive at the defence.
The Dons plan seemed to be to let Hanley have the ball and then go man-to-man in the midfield. There were certainly some aimless long balls from the Scotland centre-half, but at times he was able to find a man.
This (below) is immediately following an Aberdeen goal-kick. Jensen took a bad touch, the ball was recovered and Mulligan received just before half-way.
Which then let to this situation, which might look familiar.
You could proffer that young Kjartansson should have been in those spaces but at I didn’t strike me that he was being asked to sit in front of the back five and protect. With the marking assignments, often he was the highest midfielder out of possession. I could be wrong, perhaps he was. Maybe thats was why he was subbed.
Right-Side
I’m not totally sure what the plan is to defend in wide areas but Hibs seemed to have some ideas to exploit it. Jensen didn’t really know where to turn and Devlin was pretty wary of stepping out beyond the white line of the box. Elie Youan seemed to sit out there quite a bit and found some space.
In the below, he was called offside but its tight (!). The Hibs man on the ball went long but he could just as easily found McGrath to feet. Jensen’s not sure why he came here tonight but he’s got a feeling that something ain’t right.
Later on we had two situations where Jack Iredale the Hibs LCB made overlapping runs and Jamie McGrath had little trouble finding him.
And then…
The first one is quite a mess.
How do you solve it? I’d say, Devlin needs to be more willing to defend in wider areas assuming he has cover from Milne and the whole back line slides over. Or, Jensen defends deeper and the midfielders cover more ground to force play back. But most of all it just seems like some nervous players not really clear on their roles but perhaps also in how to deal with certain scenarios.
Devlin might need a break. Surely Dorrington can step in?
The First Goal
Hibs’ opener would be one you’d be quite happy with if it was scored by men in red but that doesn’t mean you can’t complain. Steve Cowan on RedTV laid the initial blame at Stuart Armstrong for a misplaced pass at the start of the move. I don’t know if it was totally on him, rather just not being quite on same page as Aouchiche. But anyway, ok fair enough. Hibs get it then Mulligan wrestles off the challenges (won’t let him get away with that again), one pass later and Hibs are running at the Dons defence.
Youan ends up with it here.
It’s not a swarm is it? 4 Hibs v 6 Aberdeen. Can we hope for better defending? Maybe here too?
Maybe even here?
The Fightback
I’m not even sure Hibs were that good but they didn’t really have to be. The Dons managed four shots on goal in the second half, none of which hit the target with all of them coming in ‘garbage time’ i.e. from minute 93 to 97.
At least Keskinen and Bilalovic made me feel something. Some pace, some players hitting the by-line, god I miss that. End product wasn’t much to write home about but at least it was a flicker.
Drawing Conclusions
Earlier in this spring I wrote about Leighton Clarkson’s vintage performance against Motherwell. Clarkson never gets a kick these days. Likewise his Cup Final midfield partner Ante Palaversa. Marko Lazetic looked like a solid front man against Dundee. He had a couple of nice touches yesterday but for the most part was bullied. The list goes on. You name the player, there’s promise and then there’s disappointment and it’s hard to really know where you stand with any of them any more, nor who is to blame.
Jimmy
The prosecution in the case against Jimmy may well be submitting new evidence to the Judge. My hunch is that he will be given this window and six months to show us what the plan was meant to be.
In his defence he may cite the following:
Poor recruitment (is he blameless? Don’t think so)
European football demands - I think it’s fair. This Aberdeen team has performed better domestically than any ‘group stage’ outfit over the past four seasons
Bad luck - Krister Tobers was the marquee defensive signing last January and he’s spent most of his Aberdeen tenure on the treatment table. Gyamfi too. Not much beyond that though?
The narrative will be that the team changed shape to get through a difficult period but January will allow them to find the pieces required to fix things.
Win at Falkirk things change a bit. Get anything vs the Rangers and we’re all a bit happier. We’ll be alright. Top 6. Qualifiers in July. Get your passport ready.
On the Flip Side
The Motherwell v Celtic game was live on US TV, so I flicked over at half-time. Motherwell were brave. Pressing high, playing with no fear, progressing the ball well through clever rotations. It’s hard not to be impressed nor envious at the job Jens Berthel Askou is doing.
On our end it’s been 18 months. Do any of us really know what’s going on? More to follow.
Happy Hogmanay.
I've said this elsewhere already today, but the players look confused, and there seem to be certain things they're expressly told never to do, like hit an early cross into the box, or - clearly related - make a run to the back post in case a cross comes in. Players who do things they're not supposed to, I assume, are immediately dropped for the next game, and round we go.
Karlsson is the exception to this, in that he's clearly been told to do whatever he wants on the grounds that he's got All The Skills, but his team-mates mostly stare at him baffled when he doesn't just play the simple pass back to them.
I maintain that there's pretty much nothing to choose between most of the squads in the division, skill-wise (even Hearts - whisper it, but they're not that good). All it takes to stand out is a coach who's a bit flexible in his thinking and players who are given the freedom to express themselves, and I can't help feeling that the Thelin Method is 'do exactly what I tell you to do, or back on the bench you go'.
It's hugely depressing, because if ever there was a season to properly go for it and try to break up the monotony, this is the one. Ah well. As my neverending series recounts, fifty years ago we replaced Jimmy Bonthrone with Ally MacLeod. It took a while, but things really did get better once we stopped going on to the field assuming we were the underdogs in every game.
Dreadful football in the main this season & that will really concern the board when it comes to attendances and ST sales. January could be really ugly because we could go into the Raith tie on the back of 2 defeats to Rangers, which would have Pittodrie simmering.
We need to really trim the squad though. I think we are in a fight for 6th at best on our current path.
The one bright spot is with Lutz at least any recruitment ( in theory) should be done with the team in mind and not just at the current managers behest.