RicoS321

At 3-0 down, he'll receive a second booking for kicking the ball away. As he walks off, he slips in the steadily forming puddle of his manager's tears, landing on a water bottle which ruptures his bum crack*, putting him out of action for six years. As he lies on the ground, Rubi commandeers the phone of a willing spectator in order to take a thumbs up selfie in the foreground of the injured Hun. The image goes viral. *I'm not a medical professional

I think we might play Nilsen and Palaversa, with Shinnie in front. Shinnie will spend the entire half getting right into Barron, not letting him move, and he'll take the bait and get sent off. We'll then take on all our flair players, like Morris and Ambrose, and put six past them.

Vinnie would have ripped his strip off and thrown it in Goodwin's face. With humility, of course.

Just back, what a result. We totally dominated that second half, it was like we were playing a team from the championship. Top marks to the defence who were solid when required, but also moved the ball forward so quickly and were happy to take it into feet throughout, Mitov included. They couldn't get near us, like we had an extra man. However, if it wasn't for a centre half, a fullback and a donkey, we'd have been going home with one point. But really, the win is Thelin's. For years, including McInnes, we've had managers sitting in, comfortable with their tactics for 70 minutes, maybe tweaking something small or making a like for like sub. Now we've got a manager who witnesses what's happening and makes changes to personnel and tactics that get us goals and points. Morris was fantastic when he came on, but it was also a change of tactic, from Keskinen coming infield and switching wings, to us playing with width and Devlin overlapping. Duk shifted in to try and pick something up at the back post and McKenzie playing high. Shinnie comes on with the instruction to play deep and cover the fullback belting forward (he was at right back for large parts), then Duk moved to centre forward in place of Sokler, who couldn't adapt from being the man over the top in the first, to being the penalty box striker in the second. Which comes to Ambrose. It wasn't that he is a good player, it's that he - like Nisbet - plays in the penalty box in a way that Sokler and Duk don't. Sometimes it's best to have a poorer player more suited to the role than a good player not playing to his strengths, and Thelin seems to not only always get that right, but also get the overall balance right and at the right time. Besuijen played well and just offered fresh legs and a different challenge for them to think about. He didn't just throw on a bunch of players because they weren't the guys already on the park. Obviously, it helps that we have that rock solid base behind to build from, but the manager has built that confidence and solidity. Just brilliant. Probably the best Dons I've seen this century. Maybe.

I have to say, I don't like this type of positivity around the Dons these days. I don't turn up to Pittodrie expecting to have a smile on my face. Thelin needs to stop all this relentless positivity. With the seagulls less erratic after their babies have left the nest, there's a real lack of things to complain about.

If you didn't sit through Alex Miller, Steve Paterson, Mark McGhee and Craig Brown then you're not eligible for a ticket in the new pie-in-the-sky arena. Straight forward enough.

Morelos heading behind bars? The logical place.

Big Dunc freeing himself up from ICT so that the Huns don't have to pay a fee.

Yet that was the rule for over 100 years without a real issue. McCoist is completely correct. I'm surprised anyone feels otherwise to be honest. There are two distinct types of incident. One is a player seeking to gain an advantage, the other is a player gaining an advantage. Duk's was just a player gaining an advantage. Not unsporting, not deliberate, not even particularly lucky. For the entire history of football, up until VAR, that would never have been a foul, because it very, very clearly wasn't deliberate. Because the handball rule existed to prevent people from seeking to gain an advantage by using their hand. Everyone that's kicked a ball before can - for the most part - tell whether a handball is deliberate or not. The rule as it was worked absolutely fine. VAR has changed the rules because it needs black and white, yes or no. It doesn't want referee discretion. It won't be long before the shitey VAR system is using "AI" to calculate whether a ball touched someone's hand, and so is automatically a foul. It's anti sport and anti sportsmanship.

You could be right, but replace McGrath's name with McCowan or Hayes and the above would have been applicable to both before they went there. He might even feel he wants another shot down South, although I don't think his game is necessarily suited to the level of team he'd get. Or maybe he's just waiting for his hat trick against the Huns before announcing his three year deal.

Aye, it wouldn't surprise me, I wish we had sewn it up before the start of the season. It was clear he was a stand out for us, it'll be interesting to see when we started talks. I don't think there's much hope of him extending his contract at present, unless he's really settled in the city with family etc. It's in his own best interests to let it play out for a while and see what offers are on the table in January. It's a similar situation to that of Hayes when he joined the Tims, and he signed a contract with us that guaranteed a good wage and a healthy - but not outrageous - sum for us when he departed. It would be tremendous is we could get McGrath on another 2 years with a ~£1M clause if he's happy enough in the city. The Tims will happily pay that chicken feed amount to get a player that can win them games domestically, coming in and out of the team when required, whilst weakening a team that can take points off them. They've done it many times over the years, with McCowan the latest, Hayes before and others. I guess it depends how much he values being a key part of a team and minutes on the park over being a smaller part in a bigger machine. I suspect many of us have had eqiuvalent situations in our own working life (I have!). He's been a great signing for us either way.

Need to dig out the Tom English wankfest over Clement and his hyperbaric chambers from last year. He's one of the best managers in Europe you know.

I like MacDonald too, but he's very prone to error also, and especially when played on his wrong foot. I'd be open to him playing, but switching Rubi across to the left. The biggest issue with MacDonald is that he slows the game down quite a bit, and that worsens on his wrong foot. Rubi doesn't really concern himself with feet whilst putting in another face-block on a shot. Molloy's errors are a worry, his hearts performance was poor, but in the other two games he didn't put a foot wrong outside the mistakes. Either way, I don't think Thelin will drop him because he allows us to play out of defence in a quicker fashion than MacDonald, which is vital to our entire setup.

I certainly wouldn't have been, but you could be right, and it's exactly the type of nonsense attitude that has resulted in VAR being introduced. Although now that it has been introduced, then it's correct to claim for it. I genuinely don't think anyone would have been claiming handball a few years ago until VAR changed the rules. The game is just completely different now. Every time the ball enters the box people are screaming for handball. It's tedious. The accidental handball rule was absolutely fine. Sportsmanship dictated, now replaced with black or white dictat, in order to make it more machine like. Just like offside. It's tragic.

Yep, he was okay. I've seen a few folk saying that he booked our players for nothing and let theirs off for similar, but I didn't see it that way. Sometimes refs make mistakes, and I think the Clarkson booking was just that. He obviously thought it was more petulant than it was, it was a nothing challenge attempting to get the ball. I think he probably recognised his error, and that's why he was quite lenient with Nilsen. He could have gone the other way and started throwing out cards all over the shop, but he didn't. I don't buy into the idea that you should book another player just because you booked one previously, especially if the ref has an inclination that he might have been too quick to judge the prior incident. Duk's booking wasn't even a foul, but if you think he caught the player then a booking would probably the right call from the ref's angle. Otherwise, Walsh was okay. Stayed up with play, got the freekick on the edge of our box spot on, and was quick to call the foul on Mitov. The ten minutes should have been eight really. That's probably where the influence of the home crowd comes in, especially when we were shitefesting at that point.

Aye, it's world class. They'd be wanking over it down South. It sits up perfectly for him to get the spin on it, and it's inch perfect. You can see it spinning to a virtual stop just as Sokler reaches it. Sokler is so good at those runs too. Part of the reason why Clarkson struggled so much in the first half was Nisbet's complete lack of movement in that regard. He offered nothing.

Exactly this. There is nothing sporting about that goal being disallowed, so it isn't an improvement to the game for it to be so. It's frustrating that the ex-pros on sportscene aren't all over this. VAR has not improved the game, but it needs decisions like that in order to justify its existence, hence why they changed the handball rules. The pundits keep going on about it being the "correct" call, rather than whether it is the sporting call. The passback rule came in to increase sportsmanship, similarly the six second rule. I'm sure there are others. The introduction of VAR, and the myriad of rules that change with it (or supposed millimetre accuracy in the case of offside) has actually reduced sportsmanship overall. That should be the key metric, and those that represent our game (especially on the impartial BBC) should be screaming it from the rooftops.

This aged well

That was unreal. What a fucking block from Duk. He can take 4 months holidays every summer. What a performance.

Stream down. Fuck sake.

VAR can get in the fucking sea. What a disgusting anti-sport piece of shite. Hope those absolute fucking wankers that took it to this country are happy. Fucking total cunts.

Obviously, it's not fucking handball. But it's a VAR handball

Handball?

Shady Mo on to run fast in one direction. Good sub.

What a half.