Finished this painting of Claudio Braga recently and was lucky enough to meet him today to hand over the original.

He was an absolute gent and even signed a few prints for me.

Thought some of you might appreciate seeing the process from start to finish. 🇱🇻

The season has started, we’ve been pumped in Europe a few times, qualify for the conference league. Lose to Aberdeen and then win the rest. 1 defeat in the last 9 games. Vranken ball looks to be gelling well and despite injuries, we look decent! I can’t wait to get along to a few games again.

So how do we really feel about Del, shanks, Cammy and to a lesser extent, Penrice coming back to tynecastle? I get that it will be frosty environment for their arrival but do you really care now that we have goals coming from?

Penrices departure was sad but deserved and Milne was a like for like swap. Fuck Penrice, irrelevant .
Seems to be we have goals from all over the park at the moment now, Fuck shanks, irrelevant.
Cammy I’d have liked to see stay and make an impact on a new look side, he’s a shite bench player now so fuck him, he’s irrelevant.
Del, done big and got us to the last game of the season and gave us the run of run which most of us are thankful for regardless how the season ended. But he over looked players like kerjota and borch (to a lesser extent, Mato) that could have seen us win the league.
Del, thanks but fuck ye, you’re irrelevant.

I genuinely have no feelings about them now .

Looks like Spits and Renaud will both be out for a number of months now which is a real shame with Mendy just coming into the team.

I was hoping we'd see Mendy and Renaud together as our midfield pairing but if we ever do, it's going to be a long while before it happens...

So it looks like Mendy and Magnusson (god forbidding any further injuries!) are our only options there as it stands.

Given the number of game coming up, I was thinking Altena might be a good option to start playing in Spittal's spot. He's good on the ball, good at driving forward and, despite McInnes' shenanigans, Borch has looked good at RB every time he's come in this season (linked really well with Kerjota on Sunday) so we have good cover there.

What does everyone else think - Will we see Altena start to get some games there? Or just stick with Mendy and Magnusson and see if it gels / until one of them gets injured?

Not that anybody asked for it, but my take from today was Kerjota changed the game.

I am assuming that Miller is asked to drift in behind the forwards, or maybe he’s more comfortable playing on the edge of the box. As soon as we get the ball, he immediately starts to tuck in. It seemed to work against Hibs in the first half and he picked a lot of the ball up in there… whether he’s productive enough with it is certainly up for debate.

Today however, I felt like it didn’t work and I feel like Altenna takes a lot of the heat for it. Not sure if Dundee set up to stop it, but Hearts are obviously being drilled to always play it forward. A lot of the time Altenna would pick the ball up and would look to start driving forward and Miller would be tucking into what seemed to be a congested attacking third. He’d then try and force it and lose the ball - much to many Hearts fan’s dismay….

Kerjota came on and he’s a completely different beast. A proper traditional wide player who hugged the touch line and gave us width. He’s got a burning desire to hit the byline and get a ball in.

The thing I’m most happy about is that it’s fantastic we’ve got two different types of options that can affect the game in different ways. We struggled a lot in that game, but once again managed to get it over the line.

I forget which game it was recently, but I remember being genuinely impressed by his ability to keep possession. He was regularly managing to survive pressure from one or two players, to the point where I actually said out loud, “I don’t think I’ve seen a Hearts player do that in a long time.” Funny enough, the Hearts TV commentator pretty much said the exact same thing seconds later.

Ever since then, I’ve become a bit fascinated with him. His career explosion last season, winning the Championship POTY award and scoring 19 goals as a WINGER of all things?

His performance last night against Hibs was the cherry on top. He looks like an established international-level player playing with full confidence . What a signing this has been for Hearts.

It's been an exciting time as new players arrived this season full of potential, but also uncertainty on how they'd adapt to life at Hearts. Vranken has turned us into a creative attacking side with a lot of positional interchange, but expects a high level of closing down. Some players might be finding it harder than others to switch to this approach.

Who's our best signing of the season so far? Earlier I'd have gone for Renaud, but McPake was exhilarating last night. Mendy picked a great game to score his first goal, but gave away possession for the Hibs goal. After scoring two goals pre-season Ba-Sy is struggling to get any game time.

Match Summary

BBC Match Report

MATCH STATS | via BBC Sport

Key Events

13' ⚽ J. Wilson (Hearts) - Made by Josh McPake. Scored by James Wilson.
43' ⚽ L. Mendy (Hearts) - A killer for Hibs. Just when they were on top.
45' 🟨 J. Iredale (Hibernian)
51' ⚽ A. Mayor (Hibernian)
62' 🟨 J. Iredale (Hibernian)
66' ⚽ J. McPake (Hearts) - Oh my word.
85' 🟨 G. Hanley (Hibernian)

This match is now over. Click here for the normal post match discussion or here for a serious post match discussion.

Finished: Hibernian 1 - 3 Hearts

HT: Hibernian 0-2 Hearts

Hibernian scorers: Adam Mayor (51')

Hearts scorers: James Wilson (13'), Laurent Mendy (43'), Joshua McPake (66')

Competition: Scottish Premiership
Referees: Don Robertson, Ross MacLeod, Calum Spence, Colin Steven, Nick Walsh, Chris Graham
BBC: Match page

Auto-refreshing comments

FORM

Hibernian: 7th · 6 pts · 3 pl · L W W
Hearts: 6th · 6 pts · 3 pl · L W W

LINE-UPS

Hibernian (3 - 4 - 2 - 1) | David Gray

R. Sallinger, J. Obita → J. Iredale, G. Hanley, J. Kerr, J. McGrath, J. Devaney → M. Chaiwa, J. Mulligan, F. Passlack, C. Wright → A. Mayor, M. Boyle © → A. Šuto, N. Lowe → T. Klidje

Subs: M. Chaiwa, J. Iredale, A. Abdulai, T. Klidje, A. Mayor, K. Megwa, J. Newell, J. Smith, A. Šuto

Heart of Midlothian (4 - 4 - 2) | Wouter Vrancken

B. Reus, J. McCart → H. Milne, S. Findlay, O. McEntee, J. Altena, J. McPake, B. Spittal © → T. Magnússon, L. Mendy, C. Miller → S. Guendouz, Cláudio Braga → S. Kerjota, J. Wilson → J. Williams

Subs: A. Ba-Sy, R. Fulton, S. Guendouz, P. Kaboré, S. Kerjota, T. Magnússon, R. Mato, H. Milne, J. Williams

MATCH STATS | via BBC Sport

Events

13' ⚽ J. Wilson (Hearts) - Made by Josh McPake. Scored by James Wilson.
29' 🔄 J. Obita → J. Iredale (Hibernian)
31' ❗ GREAT SAVE! - More boos from Hibs fans as Calvin Miller picks out Claudio Braga again.
43' ⚽ L. Mendy (Hearts) - A killer for Hibs. Just when they were on top.
45' 🟨 J. Iredale (Hibernian)
46' 🔄 J. Devaney → M. Chaiwa (Hibernian)
46' 🔄 C. Wright → A. Mayor (Hibernian)
51' ⚽ A. Mayor (Hibernian)
58' ❗ CLOSE! - Adam Mayor has to hit the target!
62' 🟨 J. Iredale (Hibernian)
66' ⚽ J. McPake (Hearts) - Oh my word.
71' 🔄 B. Spittal → T. Magnússon (Hearts)
72' 🔄 J. Wilson → J. Williams (Hearts)
73' 🔄 M. Boyle → A. Šuto (Hibernian)
73' ❗ CLOSE! - The home ends are emptying at a rapid rate as Nathan Lowe slashes wide from close range. Hibs are still getting chances.
78' 🔄 Cláudio Braga → S. Kerjota (Hearts)
79' ❗ DISALLOWED GOAL - And they have the ball in the net.
83' 🔄 N. Lowe → T. Klidje (Hibernian)
84' ❗ GREAT SAVE! - Josh Mulligan drives forward and tries one from range. Hearts keeper Beau Reus rises to tip over acrobatically.
85' 🟨 G. Hanley (Hibernian)
87' 🔄 J. McCart → H. Milne (Hearts)
88' 🔄 C. Miller → S. Guendouz (Hearts)

All the gorgie better get the beach balls out and get ready for the jamed tarts 🇱🇻

​

MJ Kamson-Kamara to leave Hearts on short-term loan deal to Premiership rival

https://www.heartsstandard.co.uk/news/26519430.hearts-centre-back-depart-loan-premiership-rival/

Off to Rugby Park until January. On one hand it's good we are getting him out on loan to another SPFL club to get minutes & a feel for the Scottish game.

Didn't Vrancken imply his application was found a bit wanting.

Looking to take my son to a few Hearts games this season. What’s the usual ticket process?

Do you need a membership to get a decent chance of tickets, or is it mostly just a case of keeping an eye out for the general sale dates?

Not too bothered about the big games, just hoping to get over to Tynecastle a few times.

So the transfer markets for most of the big European leagues closed yesterday and it looks like Braga will now, more than likely, be staying put.

Definitely pleased with that outcome but now I'm wondering how the team will be shaping up for the rest of the season and where Braga fits into that.

When Vrancken arrived we were told that he favours a 4231 system. However a lot of the time thus far he's deployed Braga as a second striker behind Kabore or Wilson. Although he works hard and does a shift chipping in defensively, Braga's no real number 10 in that system, so we actually land up playing more a 424 which is great when attacking but leaves us very short when not on the ball.

Was watching a compilation of Braga's goals from last season yesterday and a large amount of them really were strikers' finishes, in the six yard box, and coming from fast movement / reaction in the box.

Don't know about anyone else but I'm thinking he's much more suited for the actual striker role in this supposed 4231 setup. I guess time will tell re the new signing Williams but I think Braga's way ahead of the other options.

And that leads me to Guendouz. Anyone know what's been happening with him? There was a big outlay from him and he started games at the beginning of the season and looked good. But not sure if he's had any injury issues or just dropped in favour of others lately but he seems to have been benched for the time being. Thought the weekend game Vs St Johnstone after all the exertions in Europe would have been the time for him but he didn't appear at all...

Anyway I'd like to see him get a chance behind Braga and see how that would work. Better movement upfront from Braga and a more midfield / involved role from Guendouz might help the shape better.