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Hello, I'm Ray Bradshaw and this is a Scottish football podcast.

All the news views and analysis you need on Thursday, the 14th of August.

And we're ready for a continental football feast this evening.

What I tried to do all last season was challenge the players every week to try and recreate

our own history or change history in a positive way when they've done that on many occasions

last season. The first one on our agenda this season is can we reach groups of football. Hibs with the

two goal advantages they take partisan back to Easter roads and Dundee United on level terms as

they host Rapid Vienna. It's huge obviously obviously. It's a great occasion especially off the back of the performance last week in Vienna. Players put in a great performance. We've taken learnings from the game in areas that we think we can improve. Can both Scottish clubs make it through to the conference playoff round? And time to check in with the table-toppers.

It's no the easiest of starts.

We've navigated the first couple of games in the league well.

And deservedly won those games.

I felt the performance was deserved enough three points.

We'll take a closer look at Premiership Leader Hearts.

The Scottish Football Podcast from BBC Sports Scotland. Yes, hello and welcome on Thursday. We've got two excellent guests as ever. First up, we've got Michael Grant, the Times, Scottish Football Correspondent. Michael, how are you? Yeah, I'm good, Ray. Thank you. Good morning. I asked Stephen McGowan this question yesterday and he kind of poo-pooed it. So I want to know your vibe of it. You got two weeks left at the transfer window. Is this the fun part of the job or not really? For journalists? Yeah. I think, to be honest, probably a lot of clubs will have done their business, weren't they? You know, they've done the body of their work, obviously. Sorry, have you not seen Celtic this season? No, well, that's true. Well, they've signed plenty of players. I don't know. And the worry for their fans is they don't sign anybody else, you know? But, yeah, listen, I know your point, and yeah, that I can't say it affects me too greatly, but there is a lot of pressure on some guys to be the ones that get the great scoops on the transfers, you know? Yeah, and we're also joined today by Robbie Nielsen, the former Dundee United and the hearts manager. Robbie, I've done a lot of these podcasts. I think you're the first person to turn up wearing your own initials on your badge, which is a nice little touch. Get some for you eventually, right. Yeah, that's the dream. That is the dream. So you're currently out at S.K. Lomo and Belgium. How's that going for you? It's been great, actually. Yeah, just to something different. I did Scotland and England for a while and then went out to America, came back and then got up to the opportunity to come come here and it's been great. It's a bit refreshing and trying different things. Because you're part of the city group so how does that work? You get a straight line to Pip Cardiola? Not yet, not yet, Ray. But it's different it's kind of, you know, obviously it's a multi-club there There's 13 different clubs within the group, so it's very, you get a lot of support from the different areas and the city football group as well. So it's been quite an interesting thing to be part of, because you see how it works. And I think that's the kind of way a lot of the big clubs are going now. I know quite a few English Premiership clubs are starting to, as we spoke prior to that we walked from Newdenaisi. They're all getting into that so getting within this

group and seeing how it works has been really really interesting. Are you still got an eye on a job in Scotland or are you travelling about, you're going to be a nomad for a while? What's the plans? No, I always see what's going on. But at the moment you You know, obviously Lee Johnson's here as a head coach and, you know, I'm quite close with Lee and he said, let me do the season and see where it goes from there after that. So, you know, I'm just concentrating in here at the moment. But always keep an eye in Scotland and the set up in there. Yeah. You know, it's, it comes and goes there. If you follow social media, you could be applying for a job in Rangers about three weeks based on what their fans are saying. So let's kick off with tonight in the Conference League qualifiers.

Let's start with Hibs.

Brilliant tuna win in Serbia last week, Michael. They could have scored more as well, couldn't they?

They could have, yeah. Listen, I mean, how many times do we get to enjoy a Scottish team,

especially out with the old firm, going away from home and winning by a couple, you know, and against a substantial club as well. You're not talking about a real kind of minnow, you know.

So that second goal from Martin Boyle made it really fascinating, I think, and, you know, you'd hope it's a game changer in the tie and it gives them a bit of comfort coming back, but I do think, Ray, that they've still, and they've said this themselves, they've still got work to do, because obviously Paters-Ir were doing it to 10 men for most of that game, and still contributed a lot to the match, still made chances, still applied a bit of pressure, so I think they clearly think that 11 against 11 means they're still in this. And, you know, you saw Kamarnat coming back from a couple down against Hibbs at the weekend. So, you know, there's no grounds for complacency whatsoever. But Hibbs are in a brilliant position. Yeah. Robbie, who do you think is going to be key for Hibbs to get the jobs done?

I saw they said Kear and Bowie is going to be fit.

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