Hibsfan

Really enjoyed both our games, Villa on a different stratosphere to Hibs so shame it wasn’t a competitive tie but I still enjoyed it. fwiw this is a terrible Hibs team, hence why we sacked the manger. I’d have liked us to have played a poor premiership team while we were at our best. As it turns out though, we played a really excellent side while we were struggling. If we had a good side just now you would have just moved into second gear and the outcome would have been the same. No bitterness from my end, just the realities of our situations when you have so much more money than us. best of luck for the rest of the season, I’ll be supporting you as the season goes on. PS. loved seeing John MCGinn again, what a player he’s turned into! cheers

We do aye, any chance of him back please? To answer the other person asking, the consensus seems to be that we got another £1m after you got promoted, no idea if that’s true or not though. Also rumoured that we’ve got a sell on % if you ever decide to cash in, I’d be amazed if we didn’t.

Hi folks, hopefully you don’t mind me continuing to stick my neb in on all things Mcginn but watched the game tonight and really enjoyed it. The thing that struck me was that in the post match interviews they spoke about how poor an atmosphere there was at Villa Park a few years ago when the fans didn’t really like the team compared to now when there’s a togetherness about the club. It’d be wrong of me to say that’s down to Mcginn however that’s exactly what happened with him at Hibs too. We were a club in a bad place but his infectious personality and enthusiasm just seem to get hold of the rest of the side which then seemed to connect with the club and the fans and we grew into a much better side because of it. Obviously you guys have your manager and Grealish doing the same thing so i’m not saying it’s all down to him but I did think it was funny hearing the pundits talking about it in exactly the same way Hibs could have been described a few years back. (Also without blowing my own trumped if you look at my first post on this threat you’ll see I described him exactly as it’s panned out, now where’s that smug smilie ?) All the best for the rest of the season, sure I’ll continue to pop up every now and again if that’s alright......

Congratulations folks. Delighted that you’re back up again and loved seeing SJM’s progress over the last season. lot of very proud hibs (and st Mirren I’m sure) fans of how well he’s done, think his popularity is testament to his attitude and character.

Best of luck in the play off guys. Really enjoyed having a bit of an interest in the Championship this season, great to see him doing so well. Seems to be a bit of a debate about whether Hibs will be due a fee if you go up, have heard one figure of £2m mentioned but no idea if that’s likely to be true or not, has anyone at your end heard about any potential additional fees?

Stop it, you’re making me cry here

That’d be class and would be very popular amongst our support too. Pre match chat in the pub before our game today started on SJM during the week and evolved to chat from the older boys about Cropley and Des Bremner (they weren’t happy I compared SJM to Cropley), anyway there’s closer links between the clubs than i realised, would be excellent if something in the summer could be arranged.

Been monitoring his progress with interest and not wanting to bore you all too much with my thoughts on him but this seems an opportune moment to remind people that Celtic were trying to get him for £1.5m and have taken an almighty hump since then as we wanted to hold out for more. Enjoying seeing you guys making a late move for the play off places, hope you manage to keep it going although SJM making a £30m move somewhere in the summer might just work in our favour

Thanks for the replies folks. its now being suggested on our forum that it’s Corey Blackett-Taylor. Interesting to see how it pans out if he does sign. cheers

Interesting, cheers. not much online about him so just a case of wait and see I suppose.

Hi folks, Sorry to be a pest and not sure if this thread or your development side thread would be the best place for this question but it’s been mentioned Hibs could be signing a player on loan from Villa this window (not Ross McCormack). We have spoken about needing new forwards and quick wingers, anyone got any idea who it would likely be? cheers

I'm having a wee laugh as there was a thread on hibs.net a while back about talksport and the consensus was exactly that. Hawksbee and Jacobs are good but the rest of them are clowns that just like to create controversy. Adrian Durham every night used to practically encourage pressure on managers by pointing out poor records, better alternatives etc..... then he'd turn round and say it was shocking they were getting put under pressure. I think Villa would be a good move for Rodgers as well though, he's achieved all he is likely to at Celtic and it's obviously not all great behind the scenes there (probably not helped by a certain John Mcginn), he's probably unlikely to get a Premiership job again as he's not Portuguese so a top end Championship club is likely to be his best route back into Premiership football. (I realise what i'm saying is similar to what Talksport were saying but i'm allowed to say that as i actually watch Scottish football)

I wouldn't give too much credibility to anything Talksport say when it comes to Scottish football or anything they say about it. They've always been pretty ignorant about it and i doubt very much if they've got their finger on the pulse when it comes to what Rodgers is thinking. FWIW i think he'd be a good appointment for you.

I know you'll want someone higher profile however you could do a lot worse than considering Neil Lennon. Wouldn't be a fashionable appointment but there's a lot more to him than his public perception, I've been really surprised by him. I wouldn't pay too much attention to his time at Bolton as that sounds like it was a complete car crash of a club at the time. Anyway, I hope you don't go after him, just thought i'd throw his hat into the ring........

I’m hoping we’ve got an additional £5m for every ‘volley in the top corner from outside the box bonus’ as part of the transfer fee. Certainly kept that in his locker when he was playing for us!

If it is £2.7m then it will help but it won’t go that far tbh. We would have to give 33% of that to St Mirren (I can’t be bothered doing the maths), we also need to build an indoor training facility as part of a project to improve Scottish football (project brave), that’s going to cost around £1m. The remaining money will help increase our maximum wage a bit but we probably still won’t be able to buy a player for decent money, any player costing anything more than a couple hundred grand would want wages we can’t afford or couldn’t sustain once the transfer money goes. It’s a bit rubbish but I’m alright with it, I like the fact we’re bringing through young players in Scotland now and I prefer that to spending fortunes on garbage that don’t care as they know they’ll be off in 6 months anyway. I look at all the money being spent in English football and I don’t really envy your game at all, I’m sure you’d rather be out of it but I prefer watching the English Championship to the Premiership for those reasons.

Hi folks, Watched last nights game and thought I’d pass on a few impartial observations of the game, won’t bother with the voting though as not really my place to do so. I’ll start with the biggest negative, thought the ref was very poor. Not just the stamp but the whole game I thought he missed loads, he was clearly over weight as well, not sure how the authorities expect someone like that to keep up with professional footballers? in terms of the game itself, your keeper had a couple of good saves but overall gave me the shits a bit, thought he should have done better with the second goal, he stays bigger and stronger he keeps that out. The boy Jelinak (think that’s his name) never looked comfortable at all at the back, believe he’s meant to be a midfielder? That makes sense. I’ll admit to never particularly liking Alan Hutton but I’m amazed he’s a regular at left back, he seems quite popular on here but I’d be surprised if you don’t need better as the season progresses. Your midfield looks good and I like Grealish, he seems a bit greedy though, suppose that comes with the territory with that kind of player but I suspect as his career progresses that may be what he needs to iron out a bit. The final third there seems to be a bit quality lacking, don’t mean that in an offensive way, just all seemed a bit raw up there. For all the possession you didn’t seem to create that much. Hopefully your two new wingers help with that. Anyway, that’s my thoughts on what I saw. Appreciate it’s just one game though so I may be talking pish.

Cheers. Think I mentioned earlier that we were due st Mirren 33% of the fee as a development fee. If the fee was £4m that would mean we’d have got the £2.7m you say so I wonder if we’ve accepted that and passed the responsibility of the sell on % to you to pay St Mirren (or negotiate a different deal). I may just be clutching at straws though and tbf if it is £2.7m but with sell on or other incentives then it could still work out a good deal for us with the market being the way it is in England.

Great to see him doing so well. Enjoyed watching the game last night, thought he had a decent game. interesting you’re talking about him being a bargain, what’s the general consensus with regards to the fee that was paid? Up here it’s anything ranging between £2.1m-£4m. Tbh I was a bit disappointed to hear the commentator saying last night it was less than £3m. incidentally, Celtic were trying to buy him for £1.5m and the general tone from the (Glasgow) press was that Hibs were in the wrong for standing in his way of his dream move. In the off chance you ever wonder how Scottish football clubs outside of the old firm don’t compete, there’s your answer. Thankfully most of us are now on a stable enough footing financially to be able to reject those offers now.

There’s been a few figures getting banded about, we apparently valued him at £4m but we were owe St Mirren a 33% sell on fee, if we got the £4m I think that would take our fee down to about £2.7m so i suspect that’s where that figure comes from. St Mirren apparently confirmed the sale of SJM has meant they’ve now beaten they’re previous record sale fee which I think was £1m so the fee must have been between £3-4m

I’ll certainly be retaining an interest in how SJM and Villa do this season. Stuck a few quid on Villa to go up as well just to add to the interest.

Getting all emotional reading this. Our boy done good...... (Surprised to read his set pieces were good, they weren’t the best for us ha ha)

TBF it's not impossible he could play that attacking role. I personally think his game may need to be refined a bit and into either an attacking or defending midfield role, right now i think he could do either but if Bruce was to choose to play him in an advanced role he could be useful there, particularly if you were up against a team playing with a holding midfielder that he could pressurise. He's done that role against Celtic to good effect a couple of times when we've stuck him up against Scott Brown. There's a reason box to box midfielders don't exist much any more and with most teams now playing 5 across the centre any midfielder trying to do both attacking and defending could find it difficult, especially against the better sides. It may, or may not, be of interest to people on here however if there was any doubt as to how high esteem we hold the guy in i've posted a link below to a thread on our fans website thanking him for his services. He'll go down as one of our great players, probably as much for what he offered off the pitch as much as what he did on it. I think he'll be really good for your whole club, not just the starting 11. http://www.hibs.net/showthread.php?333042-Thanks-John-McGinn

I've had a wrestle with that conundrum over the last 24 hours too but if SJM can look past the colour of your shirts i suppose i can too ?

I suppose there's an element of expectations to be managed though. A lot of very good players he's been compared to on this thread. It's probably still a decent step up for him and the expectations of playing for a club the size of Villa may take some adjustment for him. I'm sure you will all really take to him but there will be aspects of his game he needs to tighten up. I've also seen it mentioned he is replacing Grealish, from what i have seen of Grealish, which isn't a lot tbf, they seem like very different players. John will offer a steeliness to the midfield and he has a lot to offer but he's not likely to be beating too many players with pieces of skill, he's more of a powerful runner than a tricky player likely to skin defenders. He's also got the strongest bum known to man (no, not in that way, keep it clean at the back), the amount of free kicks he wins due to his ability to hold people off by putting his bum out is something to behold. When is your next game on the Tele? Looking forward to keeping up with how he's getting on. Jesus, i'm going to miss him. ?