RicoS321

I'm going on the evidence of the last 3-4 managers. I don't know but, as I said, if he has given him internal backing then it's absolutely failed (or the manager is ignoring that resource and thus probably doesn't have a future). I think he's only got one experienced guy in Agnew, and I got the impression he was more a classic coach type akin to Tony Doc (another Robson basically), which gives the players a break from just having the manager shouting at them. Robson said in the summer (think it was when discussing Liam Fox's departure/replacement) that he doesn't want yes men at the club and wants to be challenged, but as far as I'm aware nobody has come in since then. The only time I've heard Cormack discussing backing for the manager was in relation to transfers. I don't consider that backing enough for a young (or any) manager. The manager has autonomy, but he needs to be held accountable and I don't believe that accountability has to end in the sack. If we don't have a structure in place that allows a feedback or challenge to the manager's decision making, then sack is the only option. That seems negligent. Especially when the manager has clear weaknesses. The weaknesses we're talking about here aren't the pot luck involved in the transfer market either.

I don't care whether we kept McInnes or not, just that we haven't managed to find a better manager, and we haven't learned anything since getting rid of him. Cormack chose not to help McInnes, instead isolating him and allowing things to go bad. He's also choosing not to help Robson now (Glass was incredibly hung out to dry, and Goodwin was just a strange situation), despite the very clear requirement to. I'm not talking about "backing him" either, which seems to be limited to giving someone a budget to spend in the notoriously volatile transfer market for a couple of windows and then being surprised when it fails. By backing, I mean the support within the club that is constantly challenging the manager and questioning his decisions, drawing evidence from the games themselves. Somebody that can remind him of prior errors and constantly play devil's advocate. Someone that's picking up on the errors he's making and providing resource, human or otherwise, to assist before and during games. He's a young manager, who we're expecting a lot from. We shouldn't be getting to the stage where we're considering his position (which they must be) without trying everything to bring out the best in him. We need someone to manage the manager basically. I don't believe that's happening. I fucking hope it isn't, otherwise it's really bad!

Actually, Gartenmann is, but Jensen isn't. Either you get Gartenmann over for long throws or, ideally, stop. Our players stand in exactly the same position for Jensen's throws, as Gartenmann's despite their being a very clear 5-10metre difference in range. Of course, none of that addresses the point that we've not scored from one yet this season, and I can't think of a single chance of note being drawn from one either. A difficult watch. McInnes is better than the three managers we've had since, basically. Destroyed by Kennedy and Watkins with a big hoofer in the middle. Worryingly we don't have a better winger in the squad than Kennedy and the evidence suggests Watkins would get in our team, and the big lad definitely would.

Feel a bit sorry for McKenzie, who's had a good game. One poor decision and then a great finish. Very much deserved for them. As we've pointed to on numerous occasions, the directness isn't working. Rubezic appears determined to make it impossible for Roos by not taking five steps out and asking for the ball. Their strikers are just covering the angles to prevent the short pass to Gartenmann and Jensen and Roos is having to go long, which is always difficult in windy conditions and an unpredictable pitch. Barron looking good on the ball, but I don't think he's doing enough to win the second balls, neither McGrath. Maybe Clarkson for McGrath and keep the formation. I'd have Duk off, but that doesn't seem to be an option. I don't think we're likely to see width anytime soon, so hopefully Miovski will just do something out of nowhere, twice.

Please make it be England.

I'm on the fence. I think it's a penalty, but I don't think it's that bad a decision that we should be giving it much discussion. Or certainly that would be my opinion if VAR didn't exist. I think the ref got both penalty decisions correct in the real time context. Both are penalties when VAR searches them out. The inconsistency is unforgivable and should see our chairman asking for it to be abolished.

I don't believe the cramp, certainly not Barron who had shown no signs of slowing down. The other two should have been unimportant to the game had we simply just replaced like for like without fucking about with formations. Those highlights certainly show VAR for the inept shite it is. McKenzie's one certainly looks like a penalty in the replay, but it's not a terrible decision by the referee not to give it. Their one is a nonsense. The referee is a couple of yards away from the offence, he sees it completely, and in context, and doesn't give a free-kick nor wave play on. VAR comes in with the question: "can you see a penalty here", and we get one. Football is a contact sport, where people stand on each others feet all the time. Not every touch is a foul (arguably the same with McKenzie), and referees and players know this instinctively when viewed in context. By removing context we get this charade of a game.

Language is probably key here though. We're told, and I've no reason to believe otherwise, that they check everything. In most cases it'll be a quick replay (there was easily time for this before the ball was back in play)before they put up the official "VAR check under way" pish. Do they just mean that they didn't reach the threshold to stop the game, and announce a check? They can obviously continue to check after the game has continued too and bring it back, if there has been no communication with the ref at that point. For the incident itself, it looked like one that could have gone either way and certainly not a clear and obvious error. As VAR removes any context whatsoever, I could easily watch the incident back with the brief: "can you find a penalty here?" and decide it's a pen of course, but then that's why VAR is such an abject failure. I thought in real time that Rubezic's was a foul (couldn't tell if it was in the box, but the ref never gave anything anyway), but again it wasn't a clear and obvious error. Their team surrounded the ref asking him to check VAR, which suggests that there is merit in doing that (further ruining the game) if we believe that checking can be upgraded from a cursory glance by doing so. Yep, it's the two sides of the Robson coin. He's clearly a good coach and motivator, but tactically poor (or certainly within games when he doesn't have the luxury of preparation). The club should be addressing this as quickly as possible as it's clear he needs help. We had a tactics guy when Glass was here, with debatable success, we should be offering that again or changing that person if someone is already performing that role. The players didn't get the chance to calm down, it's like spending ten minutes tickling a child and then berating them for being too excited. The substitutions and system change are exactly what caused the lack of composure, with too much changed in one swoop. McKenzie was rattled and Hayes didn't know what he was supposed to be doing. Duk was just the wrong guy for the job (although Miovski was struggling and wasn't tracking), and Clarkson was coming on for one of our best performers on the night in a position that he's worse (than Barron) in.

Who said they didn't check the penalty? Sounds like bollocks to me. They check everything. They might not have immediately stopped play, but they will have checked it. Regardless, you're only highlighting what everyone (including you I'm sure) said prior to VAR coming in , that you can't define what a clear and obvious error is, so it simply moves the point of controversy. It should be consigned to the bin, it doesn't work and has never worked in any football setting at any point. The evidence was in way before we deployed it in Scotland. As for Scales, I think it was clear that he was turning into a great player for us. As soon as he learned to be aggressive in the challenge (when Robson came in) it was like night and day. The club has to decide whether we continue to loan players without an agreement for purchase from anyone really (Gartenmann will be a big loss if he leaves), but specifically the Tims. It leaves an extremely bitter taste, and the benefit is almost all theirs. I thought Jensen was poor tonight, but he's been okay so far and I'd have taken a year of someone at his level ahead of developing Scales.

It was like throwing a bomb in the middle of the pitch, or taking each Dons player aside and telling them that their children have been kidnapped, or parents have died. They made a triple sub* because they needed to shake their team out of the position they were in. We needed calmness, simplicity and leadership. McGrath and McKenzie had an understanding that was working, so he shifted McKenzie further forward and put Hayes on the wing. Hayes should have been on doing exactly as Polvara was doing but with more energy. Duk should have been told to do exactly as Miovski was doing, or take on Sokler if Duk can't manage it (and I don't think he can play the lone striker, his movement is pish). We completely lost all sense of positioning and shape in that period, as you'd expect. Obviously Rubezic has to take a huge portion of the blame, but when you've got a guy like that at the back then all the more reason to keep things simple. It's a real shame, I don't think Robson has the slightest clue how to make tactical changes in games. He needs help. He needed somebody to veto that pish tonight. It was him that lost us that the game, not the ref (who was again worse than anything we see in Scotland) and not Rubezic or Hayes. *I genuinely believe that Robson based his triple sub on their triple sub. They've done one, we'd better do one. It was that inexplicable and ridiculous.

Well that was as bad as the Hun debacle under Goodwin. A fucking embarrassment. What manager makes three subs and changes formation at 2-0 up? What coaching team doesn't haul aside and say "what the fuck, Barry? Calm down mate"? Clueless doesn't even cover it. I don't remember seeing the Dons make such acts of self sabotage like tonight's and the prior Hun game. I remember us being consistently shite, and just losing, but this is something different. It's weird. Top marks for McGrath tonight, was excellent. Barron played well and should never have been off the pitch (maybe ten minutes or so later if he was really struggling). Miovski and Polvara were struggling, so bring on fresh legs within the same system in place. Keep it simple. Of course, within that you have the elephant in the room of our second striker. If the other two aren't overtaking him by now then they shouldn't be here.

This. Coupled with the huge inconsistency in the team, it's not that big a draw. Probably because I've not been to an away game, I've not enjoyed the Euro campaign much this season. Hopefully that'll change on Thursday with a good performance. I expect a similar line up to the Hun and Frankfurt games.

Think Rubezic was available for Dundee had they not been frightened by wind and stuff.

Absolutely disgusting. It's a life and death match.

Should be a good one. Hopefully with the late kick off, the storm will have passed by the time we start. Any word on whether Rubezic is injured from midweek, or was it just a knock? Would be interesting to see MacDonald coming in, although I'm not convinced by having three ostensibly similar centre backs in there. Otherwise, don't expect much from Robson. As before, the key will be what he does in midfield.

Have we got a game this weekend?

You don't, in any meaningful sense. Even though we do have options to do just that. Simply shunt everyone across one clockwise (starting at Devlin) and switch to a four at the back, taking McGrath or Clarkson off for a right winger in a 4-4-2. We've not tried it with a mixture of Duncan, Hayes, Morris and Besuijen all available, so I don't see it happening with another winger. His go to seems to be a front three, and now that we have a settled defence, his preference seems to be a 3-4-3 as plan B. We've got four strikers, including a misfiring one, to keep happy. I don't see us doing much that rocks that in January and expect a midfielder in the door. Although that could change if he eventually uses the ones we've got properly. The biggest thing for me this window is that up until this thread I thought we'd signed Dadia rather than just loaned him. That news is like a new signing in itself.

Jesus. We haven't even put Dadia to rest. Give us time to grieve.

The game's been moved to the Friday night due to the annual reindeer conference being held in Helsinki on the Thursday. Which is live on sky.

Ahh, had forgotten about the second seed thing. The players also have to play for their places at the tournament too, of course. To be honest, I trust Clarke will get them up for the games.

Yep, it also takes the pressure off for the Georgia and Norway games and turns them into a bit of a friendly. They've barely put a foot wrong in the campaign, I think we deserved a chance to go for that top spot. I was actually surprised that there wasn't more made of it on Thursday to be honest. It was fleetingly mentioned in the commentary, but it seemed like our target prior to the Spain game was simply qualifying rather than winning the group. There seemed to be a lot of annoyance at the decision to chalk off our goal, but very little focus on why it was so bad for us. It was almost like there was still a lack of belief (among the general punditry) that we could win the final two games to win the group. Almost a relief that we don't have to go through it I suppose, which I thought we'd moved on from. They all seem to be stuck in the mindset that Scotland will strive to fuck it up at the death, which I think this group of players deserves better than.

Fantastic. Although still a little gutted that we're not playing for top spot. A draw would have been nice.

I'm not suggesting that we should, of course, just that the stadiums might be better. Ibrox is far better than Hampden for actually watching football, especially in the ends. The Tim dome also. If we could knock both of those down and sell the land, then we could do up Hampden.

Couldn't agree more.

It has been a complete failure in my opinion. It's frustrating, because in Scotland we had ample opportunity to watch it fail in England (and elsewhere) first. It's such a huge change to the game that match-going fans weren't asked their opinion on too. Although I'm almost certain that enough people would have voted for it because of nebulous ideas such as "being left behind", "progress" and "refs in Europe". I don't even like it when we get a VAR decision in our favour, it just feels wrong most of the time. I think it's because they've made up new reasons for fouls (handball and having your cock offside) and then VAR gives us fouls for those new rules. Those are the majority of instances, with a handful - per season - of correcting poor ref calls added in. Unfortunately it's not an experiment either, it's now fully embedded and can't be overturned (ironic, given its purpose). Like everything in our technologically religious world, the answer to shite tech is bureaucracy or more shite tech. Some clever fucker once said something about the most progressive way to progress being to go backward, or some shit. I'm guessing that they were referring to social media, or TV or whatever, but it's applicable here. We marched into a technology without questioning what it would do. We didn't say: "is the purpose of offside really to chalk off goals where a player is only a foot off?". We couldn't even come up with a definition of clear and obvious. The next step will be to amend the rules or make the technology faster, rather than to go back and ask why.