Match Day Thread Heart of Midlothian FC v Sunderland AFC - Saturday 26th July 2025 - KO 15:00

What do you mean feck off with stats. You said he’s never available but I’ve just shown you how much he’s played for us lol

 

That was poor, totally different from last week so not panicking.

 

Stats are facts. He was available throughout the promotion season including the playoffs.

How can he play 39 games and be never available?

I’m baffled mate?

 

Im done now. Dont hound me out like @Southern A , because we're all entitled to our opinions

 

Meh. Is what it is. You probably learn more from bad performances than good performances in pre season.

Think getting Reinildo playing will help a lot so hopefully that isn't too far away. Get a couple of signings done soon and a few out the door and we'll be fine.

 

We are entitled to opinions mate.

But these are literally facts that he was available throughout the season just gone?

 

No one’s hounding you out man. I’m just discussing your point

He’s made 116 appearances for Sunderland in 4 years.

if you take out the bad season is 108 in 3 which is an average of 36 games a season

 

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His availability will be down to what the surgeons and medical team tells the gaffer lol

Cirkin has played a huge part to get us where we are, but not he's a drain on the club because we are in the Prem and spending money.

I'm pretty sure this argument was being done a couple of weeks back.

 

This, not uncommon at this stage of preseason to intentionally send players into games with heavy legs.

 

The takeaways for me so far in pre season

Midfield 3 of Sadiki, Diarra and Le Fee is the way forward

Neil would suit a team who will have all of the ball

Defence and goalkeeper needs to be the priority and addressed ASAP

Need more firepower upfront, only 1 goal in 3 games atm

(Dan Neil is not a bad player he just doesn’t suit our fast counter-attacking system for me, no scapegoat or agenda)

I do wonder about RB too

 

I see your point of view but my opinion is that they have proved they are good players. I think they deserve to see their current layoff though and prove themselves until at least the next window, No amount of whinging is going to see them leave whilst they are recuperating.

 

No doubt CF is coming into focus a wee bit.

I have no doubts Mayenda grows into league and season but we need a hold up player.

 

Agree. I do think Mayenda might struggle against these PL cb’s. Wouldn’t like us to put the responsibility of our main 9 on his shoulders I don’t think

 

Would like Isidor to get a nice run out soon but that game hopefully highlights the holes in our squad

 

We’ve missed a trick not giving him a run as second striker alongside Abdullahi imo. We should be trying more stuff out.

 

At least it’s over.

 

Not sure why he’s decided (or the club have advised him) to lose bulk in the offseason.

 

Aye: he be great of the bench for 30 mins time while he finds his feet and grow into more minutes.

Easy to forget that was a lot of his role last season.

Wonder what Mikutadze is up to….

 

If Xhaka was watching that he will now be saying "I only want Leverkusen"

Jokes aside I've not seen a second of the game just looked through this thread and get the consensus we were poor and well beaten. End of the day I never read anything into the score in pre season. Obviously its nice to play well and win but we've had good pre seasons followed by **** seasons and **** pre seasons followed by good seasons.

It's all about getting minutes into players legs and ideally escaping without injuries.

The levels and intensity between today and West Ham will be absolutely night and day

 

In regard to the fact we've only scored 1 goal in 3 games. It's just a throw away thought but is that down to our forwards still getting their fitness up to 100%, still building connections with the midfield and learning how they're moving the ball forward or is there another reason?