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Have to say, Hearts' promotion has been night and day compared to Aberdeen's. Loads of videos from previous semi-finals to get fans in the mood and excited about going. It's been six days since Aberdeen have even mentioned the semi-final, and that was just to say they were on sale. In that time Hearts have made six posts about their semi-final, including video content.

You're not going but you're hitting out at other fans for not going? No it's not, because we sold around 20,000 for a 3pm kick-off at Hampden v Dundee United in 2015. Good kick-off time, not on TV, the club in a good place, the support will come out. Likewise, as I've pointed out, Hearts have in the past have poor ticket sales. For the 2012 semi-finals, they actually sold fewer tickets than Aberdeen & Hibs. Circumstances change. Sometimes our support will be big, sometimes it won't. If Aberdeen appoint Jimmy Thelin on Friday and we put five past Livingston on Saturday, you might see a spike in sales come Sunday night. The "justification" is simply this: it's a semi-final, both clubs deserve to be given the same chance of winning it. The game being in Celtic's own city is already an advantage. Them having the bulk of the support is another. We're at a disadvantage before a ball is kicked. If we win, anything less than 50% for the final would be a disgrace, the semi ticket sales should be an irrelevance, in the same way I wouldn't expect Hearts or Rangers to be given a goal start in the final because their performances over the season suggest they deserve the cup more.

It's not a poor turnout, 7,000 is actually a huge away support all things considered. There's not a club in Scotland who would sell that in our position (both geographically and in football terms). Hearts sold less than 10,000 tickets for a cup semi-final in their own city v Inverness. I haven't bought a ticket, not because I think we'll get beat, but because the club is a fucking shit show at the moment. "All just excuses", if you say so, but I don't need to blindly follow the club anywhere, especially when I've shelled out for plenty games this season. It's that attitude that's allowed the club to have such disdain for the support the past few months because they think we'll all turn up regardless. I'll buy a ticket if from now until then they sort their shit out. I have my doubts.

That's not true, we were never offered a 50/50 split. Hearts strongly argued they would sell 50%, but that any unsold (100s at most) they would pay for. The SFA accepted this proposal because Hearts are a massive club, the third biggest in the world they say. Unfortunately, sales haven't been what they expected and It actually looks like they may be a few thousand short. Oops. Aberdeen's proposal was that any unsold tickets would go to Celtic, which is the sensible and fair solution. The SFA said that wasn't possible (of course it is) and that Aberdeen should be rightly penalised for choosing to base themselves 180 miles away in the north-east of Scotland.

Typical. Thelin has an awful start to the Swedish season and NOW he wants to jump ship to the Aberdeen job.

The Aberdeen-mad version or the AFC Chat one? Because I'm pretty sure the latter is impersonating the former.

Bold strategy of not marking Simon Murray at a corner doesn't quite pay off there.

I'm expecting the manager to be someone I've never heard of, or someone I'm dead against. I'd still like to think Stephen Kenny would be in the frame. Good experience, successful in the past, dealt an unlucky hand with Republic of Ireland, currently a free agent.

Angus MacDonald ill apparently, which explains his absence. Other than that, probably our strongest XI.

Looks like we've sold around 7,000 tickets so far, which is incredible numbers considering what's going on with the club right now.

Plays three at the back, would split the support too much anyway.

No, you were criticising O'Neill's recent run of results, I was pointing out he has a young team and they are in a period of transition. Romania, Hungary, Greece and Finland may not be seen as major nations to Scotland, but they are all significantly bigger than Northern Ireland. You were the one comparing his management record to Callum Davidson and Tommy Wright. Are you serious? They lost to Germany and Poland by a single goal and beat Ukraine 2-0. Again it's Northern Ireland we're talking about here. They lost narrowly to a Wales team that went and beat Belgium 3-1 in the next ground. Does it? Where's all the management offers for Steve Clarke? Or Neil Lennon? Like who? If you mean Lennon I can think of many, many reasons and him not being a fashionable name isn't one of them.

It's not the club leaking anything. They have nothing to leak except bad news. What is the bigger achievement? Winning a cup in Scotland, or not only taking Northern Ireland to their first major tournament in 30 years but then taking them to the knockout stages? They qualified by topping their qualifying group where five of their opponents had significantly bigger populations and a larger player pool to pick from, losing just once, then beat Ukraine at the finals. He's achieved more than all the names above and I include Neil Lennon whose record at clubs outwith Celtic has been poor. Lennon in his management career has never punched above his weight. And by the way, since you compared him to Callum Davidson, O'Neill also has two league titles at two different clubs in two different countries* *or the same country if you're that way inclined. A lot to unpack there. "He's done ok to a point" - as above, his first spell was sensational. He also took them to a play-off to get to another finals (though left before it because of Covid/Stoke). In his second spell he's having to work with a young team. Is it not an average age of 23 in the last two games (1-1 draw with Romania and beating Scotland). Let's not forget Northern Ireland are minnows. They have less than a 2m population, and even a large proportion of that would refuse to play for them and would instead choose the Republic if given the choice. As for Stoke, he actually did well there initially. He got sacked because towards the end they got into a rut that he couldn't get them out of. It certainly was no disaster. As much as I'd like O'Neill as manager, it's not happening unless we pay big bucks to get him. It may come to that if we continue to struggle to get someone.

Michael O'Neill rumours doing the rounds, mainly based off his Northern Ireland press conference today where he didn't rule out the Aberdeen job. I had heard a few things weeks ago but was under the impression it hadn't come to anything and any interest was now over. But I would be delighted if there was substance to these rumours and it was him. The day Robson was sacked I tweeted two names - Jimmy Thelin & Michael O'Neill.

We're just making excuses for the club here. Never in my whole life have I known a football club to take this long to appoint someone. Now I should say, I'm not criticising them for this week and the time it's taken them to whittle down their shortlist and get it over the line, because that's fine, that does take time. But we appear to have sacked Barry Robson with little imagination as to what to do next bar giving the likes of Lennon and Warnock a call. We've needed a German company to come in and say "yeh, you see all that success there you're targeting, you might need a good manager and a proper coaching structure to do that."

Have they what? Pissed about? Absolutely. As far as I'm aware, we're appointing a manager before a technical director. Not all of it is speculation and the media may have more of a clue than you think. Maybe not about who will be manager, but why certain others won't be. Do you think Jimmy Thelin is still in the running?

But that's not what has happened. The club aren't simply "taking their time". They had five months last season to pinpoint targets. They've put an interim in place this year and made little move to get their new man while Warnock was setting the place on fire. They have began interviews two weeks after their interim fucked off because he was dismayed at what was going on behind the scenes.

Crafty of the club to hold off announcing the new manager until people have bought the tickets.

Monday will be 11 years to the day Derek McInnes was appointed Aberdeen manager. You think we're waiting until the anniversary to... you know?

Yeah, Souttar replaced McKenna in the squad. Hanley also pulled out.

But that's not what happened. And no-one has been stitched up. Porteous says we're getting close to the best teams in Europe. Gordon says we can beat anyone in our day. He was literally asked about it today. He wasn't raging. He answered we've shown we can be competitive against the best teams. You're getting yourself annoyed at nothing.

Craig Gordon has said that Scotland can get a result against anyone on their day. That's his actual quote. Shall we burn down his house while he's away with the national team or wait until he returns to lynch him for creating unrealistic expectations?

Which divisions have been created? Do you think half the squad aren't talking to him now?

Just read that back and hardly any of that made sense Been a loonnngg day.

Aye but McInnes was likely in significantly more than Glass was, so shits and roundabouts. Would JET have been on big wages? He would have been on commission minimum wage & relying on tips at Livingston.