Management thoughts on Tynecastle tomorrow

Posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010

  Mike says -

 ”Tomorrow we play our last league game for several weeks which doesn’t make the three points anymore important but will make both teams want to go into the “cup” break on a high. Like ourselves Tynecastle have started slowly but I saw them at Riccarton last Wednesday and they looked very good to me that evening. Murray and David have had a mountain of injuries to contend with but against Heriot-Watt the team had a good balance about them and deserved their two goal victory. 

 Robbie Arthur pulled the strings in midfield behind Paul Devlin and Wayne McIntosh who gave the student defence a torrid time as well as both scoring. They have pace and trickery in wide areas with Eddie Mearns and Steven McCormack while the young defence looked solid in front of the impressive John Gilbertson in goal. Tynecastle are a good side and we will have to be at our best tomorrow.

 For our part the majority of the team will have played in the corresponding fixture last August where we put in our worst performance of the season. Tynecastle overran us that day as we struggled to come to terms with our new surroundings. Our players have nothing to prove but Sam and I will be reminding them that they may be due a performance against Tynecastle at the Academy.

 Sam and I were almost certainly going with the same team for the third game in a row when a collision at training last night may have put two regulars on the side-line. One player managed to gingerly take part in the rest of training after a few minutes to recover but the other had to hobble into the changing rooms. Alex King is still a week or so away and Sean McAuley is unavailable. Given Jorge left a couple of weeks ago and we are down to the bare bones.

 There will be a few frantic phone-calls today and a couple of fitness tests tomorrow before we decide on a starting eleven. What’s certain however is that whoever runs out in a Spartans top will have to be at their very best if we are to give the pressure up on Sammy and his boys.

 I hope you come down and watch the action.”

 Mike