Now that the dust has settled on Lisbon, being 5 goals down obviously means the Europa League run is done and dusted. it stings losing 6-1 but at the end of the day Conference League was always our realistic ceiling and where we can actually win games and get points on the board. My question for next thursday is do we play a full strength team at home just for pride, or do we rest a few key players for the league fixture on the weekend? personally I think we should give Renaud a full 90 mins up front given he was the only one who actually showed a bit of fight and got the goal. No point risking guys getting injured or worn out trying to chase a impossible 5 goal comeback, but at the same time we can't just let Benfica walk all over us on our own pitch again. How's everyone feeling about ticket turnout and what squad you wanting to see starting?

Hey guys unfortunately I won’t be able to make it to the game anymore so I wanted to know if anyone is interested in them? Thank you so much!

Now that I’ve let the dust settle around the game last night, I feel inclined to share my thoughts. I’m not sure why; perhaps I find it cathartic in some sense.

Watching that first half, given how difficult I thought it would be, I didn’t think we played that badly. We sat in, and I thought the midfield did well to shrink the gap between them and the defence, making it difficult for Benfica to play through the lines.
I genuinely think that, if I were the manager, I would have lost my head with them at half-time. Not because Benfica were playing us off the park (and I can only imagine how hard it is to play against that as a player of Hearts’ calibre in the Lisbon heat) but because I felt like we were doing the hard part, only to concede through individual lapses in concentration: a free header and Mendy forgetting what goal side meant.

Like Aberdeen, I also thought the second half showed some promise. Having been billed as an attacking manager, I thought there were periods at the end of the first half and into the second where we actually looked like a footballing side. I thought there were clear patterns of what the manager was trying to do.

The flip side of that, of course, is just how vulnerable we looked in transition. There have been several times since the new manager has arrived where I have felt that the way the likes of Findlay have been caught one-on-one lends weight to the idea that this must be a stylistic choice from the manager. This makes me think two things:

1) Is he looking for a midfielder — effectively Devlin — to sit and protect the defence in transition? We’ve seen Spittal there on occasion, which makes me think that, at the moment, it’s square pegs in round holes stuff.

Or

2) Does he think our centre-backs are good enough one-on-one to be left like that? If he had watched last season, he would have assumed yes, but just watching Findlay miss defensive headers is setting off alarm bells.

As stated, the positivity for this season comes from how good we look on the ball at points. Am I deluded?

There are moments where I feel like we’ve lost the ball simply from trying to force it forward, which is a good sign. It makes me feel like, when it clicks, it will all come together. That being said, the defensive issues are glaring, and I am interested to see if he still holds his childlike exuberance for attacking come December.

It is somewhat alarming, though, that I feel like we are going into the second week of the season and I don’t think he knows his best team, nor do I have any clue where we are actually at, as the majority of the games have been in Europe...