[0762]

Well this will be one of the glamour Euro matches that has a guaranteed full house on Wed night. How do Hibs take this on? With great difficulty in my humble opinion. However, we must never give up on such a challenge - not the Hibs way of doing things. Lets try to win it v very good opponents with a top manager, Unai Emery, who has been a "good fit" for the Birmingham footie club - a Euro trophy-winning legend who certainly lifted John McGinn's career, John now skippering the team. Villa's last away game was a thrashing v Newcastle United. I hope Johnson studies Newcastle's midfield tactics in this game and at least tries to make it a competitive one. They've never played us before in a Euro match on the big ER pitch, but there's no doubt they'll "show up" with what I reckon will be a strong B team chosen specifically to do the biz in Leith. I think John McGinn will play because he'll want to play and associate with the Hibs crowd again - a revered Hibs Scottish Cup legend who played a big part in smashing that historic Scot Cup bogey and also removed all the angsty flak from enemies/critics of our club in that historic 2016 final. A John McGinn "hat trick" coming up? I hope not. Anyway, like many other Hibs fans I'm looking forward to visiting ER Stadium and watching this glamour match. C'mon Hibs - try to make a game of it!!

GGTTH

[Lord Snooty]

Is it on BBC Scotland?

[0762]

Surprisingly no. Possibly BBC IPlayer coverage - on inspection of the BBC web site it looks like BBC Sportscene doing something right after KO time. TNT Sport (formerly titled BT Sport but recently changed this year) doesn't have it televised as UEFA Champs League quali footie gets priority. UEFA enforced early KO btw - 5.45pm.

[Inverurie Jambo]

Surprisingly no. Possibly BBC IPlayer coverage - on inspection of the BBC web site it looks like BBC Sportscene doing something right after KO time. BT Sport doesn't have it televised as UEFA Champs League quali footie gets priority. UEFA enforced early KO btw- 5.45pm.

It is on BBC Scotland, also showing Hearts game on Thursday

[0762]

https://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/article/ti...on-villa-h

It looks like Hibs not ignoring their ST holders after all!! Why they left it so late after the ticketing melee on Friday is baffling TBF. And then another possible general sale of remaining tickets tomorrow! Noted in this article Hibs thanking their fans for their patience during a "tight ticketing window"!!!??

[Lord Snooty]

Three crosses. Three goals. Game over by half time.

Huge gulf between the Premier League top half and everyone else.

[0762]

https://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/article/hi...on-villa-5

Just back from ER Stadium and at least the record Malmo 0-7 thumping was not matched up by Villa although it could've easily been such a humiliating score line. What a surprise introduction of a legendary ex-Aston Villa and Hibs player, Des Bremner, presenting the match ball before the KO - in his prime, this man was a hugely fit mid player who could literally run with commitment for a full 90 mins, Villa buying him from Hibs and he eventually won a European Cup winner's medal with the Birmingham club.
As for the match? Villa too good for Hibs although I must say I didn't like Johnson's s starting team/choice of certain players, and what he was actually trying to achieve tactically(?). Also certain Hibs players not even doing the basics in playing a game of footie v top opponents (and favourites to win this UCL trophy) like Villa. Watkins scored a well-taken "hat trick" tonight and didn't work too hard to achieve it - surely any savvy footie-minded coach would realise that he was gonna be a major goal threat!!! So what do you normally do about it? In this case nothing!! John McGinn confirmed in a recent interview that Villa's team of footie analysts had watched tv video footage of Hibs v Raith Rovers and a couple of other recent matches. They identified Hibs "open door" right flank plus iffy CB defending - lotsa space out there from the 3rd minute onwards - John McGinn pinging crosses to their waiting forwards in Hibs pen box and when you don't man-mark players like Watkins, you ultimately pay the price!! Here's a searching question in my last Sb thread to all Hibs fans: "How many times does David Marshall come off his goal line to intercept crosses in a full footie season"??????????? It's time to start counting!! He shouldn't be Hibs goalie any more! One other irritation for me was their fifth goal, a pk when Stevo decided to bring down their tricky winger when he really didn't need to do that - just let him go and see what happens plus another Hibs player was close by anyway!! Hibs were certainly gonna lose tonight, but the manner of this defeat is very disappointing - I noticed how very few fouls or gritty challenges/tough tackles were evident tonight: one of the "cleanest" matches I've watched for a long time considering what was at stake! Hibs best player? I'd say Joe Newell tried particularly hard tonight, but he is a Birmingham City fan with something to prove. What about the rest??? As for Youann? I was totally perplexed and baffled why Johnson never quickly removed him after it became self-evident that he wanted to be a one-man show tonight and not include his teammates in what is effectively a team game. I must say that is really poor management/decision-making on Johnson's part!! Anyway, well done Villa and good to see a top team coming to Leith and enlightening many Scottish footie fans re the huge gulf in standards esp when the general Scot Prem standard would be pushed to match up to League 1 in England and that's a fact whether we like it or not! My main concern is the impact of this result on team confidence/belief moving forward. The boys play Livingston at ER Stadium on Sunday and I just hope they somehow register a positive result and move on to a more settled period of success in the weeks ahead. I do think we need some more cover players to "shadow"/compete for certain positions in the 1st team.
Anyway, that's me signing off this Sb board and moving on to more pressing, important issues in the weeks and months ahead. All the best.

[ritchiebaby]

Just as expected, Hibs were no match for Villa and the gulf in class was all too apparent. Villa eased their way through the game and were cool, calm and collected. Us Hibbies at the bowling club agreed before the match that if we could keep Villa down to less than 10 goals over the 2 legs, we'd be relieved. It looks a difficult task now.

[themaclad]

Still surprised to see the name Adam La Fondre. Thought he disappeared decades ago.

[hibeejim21]

Still reckon we will go through over the 2 legs.