One change for Hearts ahead of the second half: Currie replaces Johnsen in attack #HMFCLive— Heart of Midlothian FC (@JamTarts) May 17, 2017
http://www.skysports.com/transfer/n...players-leave-hearts-after-signing-in-january "Cathro has had a number of difficult moments and is understood to have rowed with forward Bjorn Johnsen at half-time in a recent 1-0 defeat at St Johnstone. In turn, that has led to speculation that the striker could also leave the capital team in the coming weeks."
@BjornMaars hope you like this photo I took of you at ibrox pic.twitter.com/XOCarLBMXt— Kevin Anderson (@kevinMFtallica) May 25, 2017
Yep. And his hair look like it's thinning pretty fast but he's growing what remains a bit long. The upshot is that when he's wet from the rain (which happens from time to time if you live in Scotland ) he really looks a lot younger; kind of like a 12-year-old with a comb-over. He's also taken to growing a beard/not shaving for about a week at a time. It only draws attention to how young he is, IMO. Don't get me wrong, he is a good coach - Rafa Benitez doesn't usually keep other people's assistants around, but he kept Cathro on when he took over at Newcastle, but there's a big difference between being a No. 2 or a No. 3 and a No. 1, and this guy is showing signs of being out of his depth in this job.
It doesn't just look good, it was good. It's the decisive moment in a run by him from deep while on the ball that caught the 'Gers defence stretched and directly led to the Hearts equalizer. It was one of the very few chances he got to show his abilities after Hearts went down to 10 men (after about 25'). If he gets up a head of steam, he can be very difficult for defenders to handle, on or off the ball.
I posted the following over on the Perry Kitchen thread. IMO, If Bjorn leaves over the summer, even for a lesser club, I wouldn't be too upset. The club really is at a crossroads and some writers are hinting that by Xmas Cathro and Director of Football Craig Levein will either be sacked or have established Hearts as the team to beat for second. The Scotsman website has an in-depth piece on where Hearts stand at the end of a deeply unsatisfying season. The data in the article's second para explains pretty clearly what the fans' problem with Perry was: the team turned bad and went to worse, the wearer of the captain's armband couldn't/wasn't allowed to do anything about it, so they took it out on him. A wretched second half of the season saw only six wins in 26 matches after Ian Cathro replaced Robbie Neilson as head coach. Hearts sat second in the Ladbrokes Premiership when Neilson left but finished fifth. Most of the nine new signings in January were sub-standard. Some clearly cared very little about the badge they were representing. http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.c...-a-crossroads-facing-huge-decisions-1-4455016 Cathro was appointed in early December, so those 9 flops - 6 of whom have already been confirmed as leaving in June - have the fingerprints of himself and the Director of Football, Craig Levein all over them. Bringing in that many players in mid-season to a team that's in second place implies that a) the new coach is going to completely revamp the team philosophy - in mid-season - and b) that a lot of the players that have brought success aren't in the club's long-term plans. Any dressing room would be unsettled by that level of turnover and those implicit messages from your gaffer and his boss. How that connects with the benefits of a Director of Football - stability and continuity in approach - is an "interesting" question in its own right, but doing it in mid-season with new coach who's very young (only 30) and in his first head coaching gig is asking for trouble. Reading between the lines suggests that the writer thinks this club is a mess that's unlikely to go anywhere positive any time soon. Perry should negotiate a payoff and move on to wherever he can. If things go well there, he's going to be shut out of the success; if they go badly, they'll go very badly and he'll be collateral damage.
Scotland's worst coach since the war. Quite possibly the worst ever. Playing a 4-6-0 formation at home, against the Czech Republic? That's not even cretinously stupid, it's just plain worthless.
For winter camp perhaps. But he's too buried in depth I would think He has more opportunity with Norway.
I see the only quality they have up top is Joshua King and his record for Norway is 7 goals in 28 caps. Though to be fair, I'm sure it's incredibly difficult to score with them with a lackluster midfield. Other strikers in their domestic league are way worse. They have a striker who plays in Ligue 1 with 1 goal in 27 caps.
To be genuinely relevant for the USMNT (as opposed a handful of sub appearances in friendlies/pre-hex qualifiers) he'd have to be a standout in the SPL. Celtic apart, the SPL is no longer even as good as MLS, never mind better and from what I saw he was an OK player for a meh team in a poor league. Yes, he's exceptionally tall, but that means he's also got no pace and while his movement and control are decent I didn't see him put himself about very much. He's a decent journeyman IMO, nothing more.
He is a fast guy, though. I don't know why you'd think a player can't be tall and fast. Usain Bolt is the same height he is. Bjorn covers a lot of distance in one stride with those long legs. And he's quick too, plus on the ball. That's why his teams have played him on the wing at times. That, and he's probably a better passer than he is a scorer. And he was SPL player of the month shortly before he hit a snag through injuries and a change from the manager who acquired him. Kitchen's play also dipped after this happened. Numerous players were reportedly on the outs with him. He had a dramatically different philosophy, that was not pragmatic for the club he was at, and the team plummeted under him, after not being a meh club in the SPL. I think we may learn later that this turmoil meant bad timing for the U.S. Although not like he would have been called up to qualifiers anyway. It would have been Gold Cup at the earliest. I suppose he's not cap-tied yet.
At 6'3" you need about 5-7 metres linear running to reach top speed. You don't get that much linear running in football, but it is about all that Usain Bolt does. Soccer players, even speedsters, spend 90% of their time in possession going straight for 5-7 metres, then at an angle for 2-3 metres, and then they lay the ball off or shoot or try a give-and-go. Shorter player may be slower, even a lot slower, over 100 metres but it's how fast they cover the first 3-5 metres that really counts. Ask Gerd Muller. It looks like you've seen him a lot, and not only in the SPL, so even if I disagreed with your assessment of his strengths (I don't) I'd defer to your observations of his abilities. I've only seen him since the coaching change - but in his better moments he did remind me a little of Jostein and Tore Andre Flo: very big, rather good on the ball, mobile and very hard to handle out wide. This. Added to which the Director of Football had taken to passing notes to the bench during games, as well as showing up in the dressing room - at half time. Add those details to persistent reports of player unrest, and well-placed observers have taken to asking who is in charge of the team there: Cathro? Levein? Ann Budge (the owner)? All three? It got so bad that Ann /Budge had to issue a statement that Cathro was, in fact, in charge of picking the team. A statement that Cathro welcomed
The Scotsman's Craig Fowler wrote this at the beginning of May. It's pretty representative of coverage then, which has got worse since. But even if Hearts get the [summer] recruitment right, what’s to say it is going to be a success? Have a look at the current squad. There’s not a single player in good form right now. None. Are they all bad players? Definitely not. In fact, it’s fairer to say they are mostly good players playing poorly. “I think he’d do well in a good team,” is a sentence you can say, and have probably heard said, about 90 per cent of this Hearts squad. When there’s such underachievement within the first-team squad the buck stops with the manager. Regardless of your thoughts on the squad at present, nobody would argue Cathro is getting the best out of them, and what does that mean for their incoming summer signings? . . . The hope is that Cathro has a specific system in mind and will recruit to realise this vision. Perhaps it’s the 3-4-3 on show at present. It’s a system which doesn’t suit the current team, but may suit the new arrivals. And in order to ensure a smooth transition, and to hit the ground running, he’s sticking with it for the meantime in order to get those under contract for next season familiar with the set-up. He better have something up his sleeve. The support are at the end of their tether already. Hearts may be intent on seeing this appointment through, but such conviction will only remain as long as the fans do. Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/sport/footb...ittle-solace-from-the-summer-window-1-4440187 Things can go two ways: as we were, with Hearts' season unravelling before October and Cathro being sacked with Bjorn being caught up in the mess; or Cathro uses pre-seaon to put his stamp on the squad. I wouldn't put any money on the second, but I'd put a lot of money on the first. Clubs with this kind of atmosphere can be poison to a player's confidence and his long-term marketability. If Bjorn gets an offer in the summer, he should give it serious consideration.