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00:00Definitely. We'll step away from the action then, we've got Transfer Sallie season to
00:09look forward to amid all that. Please, for the love of God, Hibs, do not sign anybody
00:13between now and the 3rd or 4th of January, we could just do without that.
00:18We are pleased to announce Xander Clark.
00:21Yeah, so that sounds about right.
00:25The first player to move directly to heart stems in pre-war, I don't know.
00:31I was looking for this, we did a bit of looking at players who have crossed that divide. There
00:37isn't many, but still more than I actually can remember, which might sound a bit…
00:43But there's plenty.
00:44But I don't think there's been one quite some time.
00:47Plenty have played for both over the years, yeah.
00:50I think maybe off the top of my head, I think one of the last ones was James Keaton's back
00:55in 2014-15, I think that was maybe. But certainly, you know, I don't want to berate the teams,
01:02the Herts and Hibs teams of those times, but this would obviously probably be one of the
01:05more high-profile ones. So we'll just go straight on to that, I mean, as soon as we're alluding
01:12to it.
01:13Our colleague Barry Anderson broke over the weekend. The rumours had kind of been flying
01:17about Friday night. Barry sort of confirmed them on Saturday that Xander Clarke is on
01:23a list of Hibs goalkeepers with a view to the summer, with Rotherham United's Cameron
01:30Dawson on the sort of short-term list for January, a possible loan I would imagine there
01:34if they're looking at Xander Clarke in the long term. Just generally, what's the sort
01:37of script then, John, from a Hibs side of things, from what you've been hearing on the
01:41goalkeeper situation and the Xander Clarke stuff?
01:44Yeah, that's definitely my understanding from speaking to people at Hibs, is that Xander
01:49Clarke, he was described as on a long list of candidates, as a longer-term one. So he's
01:56out of contract at the end of the season. Can you sign him on a pre-contract? There
01:59are about, I'm not going to say how many there are on it, I would take a guess at it, but
02:03say there's two, three, four goalkeepers they're looking at as that long-term option. You'd
02:08be daft not to if there's a Scotland international on your doorstep, regardless of who he's playing
02:13for and you thought you had a chance of getting him. The Dawson one at Rotherham would be
02:19a more short-term thing. They may then have an option of getting Joseph Bursick to go
02:26on loan somewhere else. He signed on a season-long loan, but these loans always have break clauses
02:31in them. There's nothing set in stone. I think they could send him somewhere else to get
02:36game time, then his club in Belgium would be happy and Hibs would be happy. You just
02:41don't see it happening for him. They're quite happy. He's stuck with Jordan Smith for now.
02:46I think that's not a problem. He's been fine in brutal conditions yesterday. He stayed
02:53focused and did everything well. Didn't have that much to do in terms of shots being saved.
03:02If you could get Xander Clark in, I don't think anyone would complain. I don't know
03:09any Hibs fans that would say, I'm not signing out of Jambo. He's a proper, experienced,
03:17solid goalkeeper. But it might not happen. It might be that there's someone else on the
03:24list that they prefer. One of the things they've looked at, one of the things Graeme wanted
03:32to do when he came in was to sign guys with Scottish Premiership experience when it's
03:40possible. If you can get that done. If you've got somebody who's already doing it in this
03:45league, that counts for more than, well, we've got a guy in League One in England and we
03:49think his talents will translate to our division, but we're not quite sure. So maybe that's
03:56where that comes into as well. They'll be looking at goalkeeper. I think you would still
04:02want a central defender, although they're probably going to have four for three quite
04:08soon when Nik Poteta comes back, four for three places. Probably still want a striker
04:14despite all these attacking options. Just because Gael is, as he said, like Gael says,
04:22his body's breaking down. He's your kind of 20 minute, 25 minute guy coming on. So you
04:28maybe want somebody else. See how Kouarevich comes back from an injury. Kieran Bowie coming back,
04:36assuming he's fit, touch wood, is like having a new signing, without a doubt.
04:43But yeah, I think like everyone, they'll look and they'll say, well, what's available? What
04:47can we get? Outgoings, I wouldn't be surprised if, not even just, there's obviously the guys
04:58they want to farm out, there's players that aren't getting game time and if they can get
05:01them out on loan, absolutely great. I wouldn't be surprised if at least one first team player,
05:07like a starter, receives an offer that makes him think, actually we could do that bit of business
05:14and maybe free up some cash to do this bit of business. I think they'd be open to that.
05:19It's going to be interesting to see how Garvin Stewart, the new head of recruitment,
05:23brought in from the Black Knight group and his Bournemouth background, see what effect he has
05:28on the identification of talent. But also Gray's made it pretty clear that he's hoping
05:38that the Black Knight tie-in gives them access to players who would normally be
05:42outwith their reach. So in the way that Emi Marcondes came in last January,
05:48on finance and everything, he should not have been available to EBS, which he shouldn't have been,
05:54but they got a deal done with a little bit of help there. And given how Bill Foley's talked
05:59about providing help in the transfer market, you would take then if suddenly there was an
06:05out-of-favour Bournemouth or Lorient or a guy, an experienced striker who would come in and score
06:1215 goals in the second half of the season, while he works his way back up to full fitness in a
06:17kind of Miziani Malida style, you would take that in a heartbeat and say, yeah, that'll do us.
06:24And if that means moving someone out the door, we'll move someone out the door.
06:27Yeah. So I will take, where are we at? I'll take January 8th for our first reporting of Owen Bevan.
06:34What day do you want to take? Is he fit? If he's fit, then yes. And there's a reason,
06:41there's a reason why they kept going back for him, because he's genuinely really highly thought of.
06:48Right. And weren't the only club interested in him, but yeah, central defender. I mean,
06:54I mean, yeah, he just seemed to be the one that they wanted, eh? I mean, like
06:59good on the ball, strong. Thing is, if he turned up now, imagine the pressure on him.
07:04Like, you'd better be like a young Beckenbauer here, mate,
07:08because it's what you've got, you've hyped up to the nines.
07:13I mean, I mean, he is still, looking at him here, he is still contracted until,
07:19eh, to Bournemouth until 2028, I think, but he's only played, played 31 games in the National
07:25League, but only 13, eh, eh, League One level, one solitary appearance in the, the Premier League.
07:32I don't think he's kicked a ball this season at all. So you wouldn't imagine, because you would
07:40imagine, but if you were to bring in a player, not just with Owen Bevan, and January can be a bit
07:45culpable for, you know, you're signing players who haven't played a lot of minutes, but saying
07:49that a guy who has not played very much, if any, competitive football in 12 months, and then
07:55expecting him to go, I mean, you really need to give him half the season to get fit before you
07:59can really see him. Well, I think it was, it was really interesting last year. I think everyone
08:04would agree that, um, you know, Miziani, Milita worked out, but he came in and was, hadn't played
08:12at all. And he'd got thrown in a start against Rangers and Montgomery just said to him,
08:18mate, I'm the only way to get you up to fitness. I'm going to have to play you.
08:22Sorry, but that's how it's going to be. And you're going to be rusty and you're going to be
08:27off it. And you're probably going to get slaughtered by fans for the first couple of
08:31games. And I remember being at that, the Hibbs Rangers game, I'd actually went with my son,
08:36wasn't working that night. It was my son. And the first time the ball came up to Milita,
08:41he kind of lost it. And we're like, unlucky son. The second time it came up, we're like,
08:46come on lad, you need to get on that. Third time, the ball came up and didn't get it. He was like,
08:50come on, you need to fight for this guy. Right on. They gave him 20 minutes leeway. And then it was
08:55completely in town. So you end up with that, as you say, you end up guys who've not played.
09:00Then you, do you take a chance and just, we've got to throw them in the bag.
09:03Do you take a chance and just, we've got to throw them in and play them right from the start.
09:07And you get two or three games, but what if you lose those two or three games?
09:11You know, that probably cost Hibbs in the end, you got that trying to get these guys
09:16bedded in probably. Maybe it cost them not making the top six in the end, you know, so
09:23I it's, it's a bad window, isn't it? January. It's a bad window for signing, but if you can get in
09:28in the summer, in the, in the summer,
09:39a cheat code would be, that one cheat code would be good.
09:46As we, just to finish this wee section off, we'll be doing this in, on the podcast and
09:50there's a wee standalone article in the news throughout January and to round it off this week,
09:57the news that Rudi Milotnikov send a new long-term deal with the club. I think that's until 2029,
10:04which is quite a commitment from the player and from the club, obviously, as well.
10:10There's a number of Hibbs players who are out of contract at the end of the season,
10:13who will now be free to speak to other clubs should they wish, should Hibbs not want to
10:17offer them stuff. However, those types of things work. There's an MD in January that you can see
10:22in particular, wanting to get tied down before the end of the season to make sure there isn't
10:27that sort of situation where they're losing. I think they're far more relaxed about it
10:33than, than used to be the case. There was a while,
10:36that's certainly, I'm old enough to remember the early days of the Bosman ruling when you
10:39could suddenly do this. You know, you suddenly became, oh, he's got his last six months and he
10:44can talk to somebody else and he could sign a pre-contract. I think clubs are far more relaxed
10:49now and letting things run down unless they're absolutely, you know, desperately, desperately
10:56trying to hang on to someone or want to cash in by, by tying them down. Clubs and players and
11:04their representatives become a lot more grown up about it. It's a business that I might let my
11:09contract run down at the end of the season, but if we come to an agreement in February, March,
11:14we'll come to an agreement and it's fine. I'm listening to other people and the player's agent
11:18will come back and say, well, I've got this offer from club X and club Y and Hibbs go,
11:24hang on a minute, I know somebody there. I'll phone them. No, you're not offering that.
11:29But as all that goes on, they'll be fairly relaxed about it. Stuff's going on in the
11:34background. It's like, as I said, it's fairly relaxed. It's like the swan at the top. It's
11:39like that. And underneath the legs are peddling like mad. People involved in that department,
11:44whether it's Malky, whether it's Garden Stewart, are working all the time on trying to get deals
11:49done and trying to get things done. I think the Rudy Milotnikov one's a great bit of business.
11:54He, at the start of the season when Hibbs was struggling, was probably the most creative
11:57player on the team. He dropped out of the team. David Gray just said that was on performances,
12:06but it was going to happen. He's 18. He's 18. He was going to have little peaks and troughs.
12:12So he's fit again after injuring his groin in a reserve game.
12:18Yeah, he'll be one to watch, I think, over the second half of the season as well.
12:24And if he plays as well as he did at the start of the season, again, that's like having another
12:28piece of it. Contract-wise, there's so many out of contract. We've done it before, haven't we?
12:35We've done the whole list of out of contract players. And there are two or three you definitely
12:43want to keep. But I guess we don't know the longer term either. We don't know the long term
12:50thinking of Black Knights, Bill Foley. I do have a major overhaul planned in the summer,
12:59in which case it's easier to let all these contracts expire and clear out.
13:06Certainly, I remember speaking to Malky Mackay early on, and he said this. He said it in so
13:13many words. He was hinting at the fact that this could effectively be a transition year where you're
13:18trying to let a lot of contracts run down. And you couldn't do as much. They achieved a lot more
13:23turnover than they thought they would in the summer. They thought it was going to be harder
13:26than it was. But backing from the Gordon family, putting money in, stretching the budget,
13:32they were able to bring in that many players. I think next summer you would be looking at
13:36probably quite a big clear out regardless because of contracts expiring. And then I suppose it's
13:41quite a good position to be in. You pick and choose the two or three you want to keep out of
13:45that dozen or so. 14, 15? I keep losing track of how many are out of contract in the summer. It's
13:51a massive number. But a lot of them are guys that you go, you're still there.