RicoS321

That'll allow McRorie to move into midfield when we need some strength (like the second half). If we can't get a good midfielder in this window then addressing right back and centre back a good start. I've never seen such a disorganised mess win so many points at home. It's impressive. That 3-1-4-2 just wasn't working for large spells yet Goodwin persisted. The midfield was just passed by. The second half was atrocious. Kennedy deserved his start, probably, but is nowhere near good enough. Another poor game from Coulson too. Scales was good, probably motm. The rest were okay. Edit: thought Collum handled the game well today. Gets a lot of abuse, but he generally keeps up with the game and he made the calls he was supposed to. The ref last week seemed to just be an assistant to VAR, whereas Collum actually made decisions with only a quick(ish) referral to VAR in the aftermath whilst the complaining was ongoing. He actually took charge of the game.

Nail in the Hun manager coffin.

We've got very different ideas on what a stonewaller is!

What does Duk have to do to get a call up? Disgraceful.

Another £2M in add-ons?

Nobody saw the three penalties, because we changed the rules so that some twat on a camera can now give handball anytime a ball gets kicked in the box. The rule change occurred because of VAR, they were brought in at the same time. None of those penalties would have been given a month ago in Scotland because nobody in the ground gave a fuck about any of them. There wasn't even a shout from the Dons fans for the Holt one for example. After that though, every single shot in the box led to screams of handball. It's absolutely destroying the game. Yet the pundits are happy to talk about the intricacies of whether it was handball or not rather than discuss whether the game benefits from having three ludicrous penalties in a single game. It didn't. It's like canned fun. Does anyone here sit at home cheering when the two minutes is up and VAR has decided that it's penalty time again? I didn't at the game on Friday, and I was pretty much dead inside watching those decisions last night.

Ahh well, we were close. I have to admit, I always assumed that if we went with a four at the back then it would mean McRorie in midfield, but taking him off completely, solved the conundrum. That's maybe the answer. Ramadani and Barron were very good in there. Clarkson didn't have his best game, but if he's playing further up the park then we have plenty options to bring on.

10 shots on target from 21 on goal. Should be at least drawing this game.

I think he meant the strike, rather than the award! You're right though. The game has not benefited from bringing back the game after several minutes to give penalties for accidental handballs. The handball rule needs to change.

Barron been very good since giving away the penalty.

This is just embarrassing.

VAR. Three fucking minutes? Fuck is that all about. Fucking anti football shite.

6-2 the Dons tonight. McKenzie 2, Duk, Miovski 2 and Watkins. Anderson with the double putting them two up.

Dylan. 17, attacking midfielder. Nae sure how good he is. Was on the bench the other week too.

The one where he ran it out of play was probably worse than thinking he had too much time. I've noticed a few times that when it comes to taking it on his left and turning his body round to pass back to the keeper, he's really uncomfortable. That particular one, Richardson shat himself and left it to Stewart and then Stewart couldn't get his body round the ball, so kicked with his right, off his left and out of play. If someone like Boyle had been playing, he'd have run right between the two of them and just taken the ball, setting him up for a certain dive in the box.

McInnes beat the Huns on several occasions. Saints regularly play a game where they sit in and catch the opponent on the break, so to do it in a game against the Hun is certainly easier for them. Goodwin has been lucky in several games already this season by playing a very attacking formation and nearly getting caught out. The fact that he thought he could continue that approach against a good team was just stupid. We gave ourselves no chance by choosing that approach, which was my only criticism. Livingston and Saints both maximised their chances of getting something and were rewarded. Goodwin's challenge should have been to find a system that was solid whilst leaving a strong threat up front (McInnes laterally just didn't bother with the latter part). Frustratingly, even Glass managed to get that balance.

No he isn't.

What choices are being used in Scotland? That's like saying that the way the pass back rule has been implemented in Scotland is poor. VAR is the same everywhere, by design. There is no versioning, and I'm not sure where the idea that there is has come from. VAR has existed in football for four years and has failed the match going supporter in every single league. The reason it works in other sports are exactly the reasons it doesn't work in live fitba. To add, tennis isn't comparable with VAR, it's equivalent is goal line technology. I think goal line technology is very good and an example of where technology can work to assist a referee (twice a year when there's a controversial goal line decision). There's no babies and bathwater, just a proposed solution that can't address the issues of subjective opinion without radically altering the game for the attending supporter. Not one person anywhere in the world has been able to draw a definitive marker on what is meant by clear and obvious in four years of the system being in play. It's collective ignorance and ego that keeps it going, backed by a cabal of childish managers, owners, pundits and EPL fanboys. If you can't define clear and obvious in a way that separates those decisions that are subject to checking from those that aren't then you don't have a working system. If fans are left wondering with every single goal, which they are, then it changes the way they watch the game. I've no problem with people saying that they enjoy the new watching experience, that removes the spontaneity entirely. Or that they enjoy the excitement of waiting for the goals to be confirmed or otherwise. It's those that pretend that VAR can ever be done in a way that doesn't change the experience that I have an issue with.

Nonsense. It's shite in every country it appears in for fans who attend games of football (take a look at polls in Germany, Netherlands, England etc). There is no "version" of VAR that works. It's a referee looking at a telly, not a technology. Clear and obvious is subjective and always will be. The number of decisions that are clear and obvious, as opposed to "subject to interpretation" will never be enough to justify its implementation and resultant watering down of the match going experience.

That was the worst 4-1 winning performance I've ever seen. We barely put a pass together, completely lost the midfield and Stewart and Richardson were worse than corpses. Then there was fucking VAR. What an abomination. It just ruins everything. It's fucking aids. That whole penalty debacle was an embarrassment to football. I think the ref was about to give it (he ran spot-ward) when the linesman flagged. I hate penalties like that, it's not sport. Throwing yourself at a ball, which you hoof out of play before diving at the keeper. Just shite. Football didn't benefit from the 45 minute decision making process. To then have a fucking retake was just cringe. I didn't even care by the time whatever happened, happened. I wouldn't blame anyone for not going back after that. Our game finished at the same time as the cove game, which started fifteen minutes later. Shambles. Then the police decided that everyone had to go over broadhill incase there was a scrap with the three remaining Hibs fans.

Harsh on McKenzie, thought Coulson was terrible when he came on against Der Hun. Richardson winning the "nae ither cunt plays there" award.

I think he's remarkably evolved given the previous Ferguson generation.

Nope. He's not better than Taylor was last time round. Not even close to be honest. He's definitely a better footballer, but he's so slow that he ends up making just as many simple errors on the ball as Taylor did. At least with Taylor the outcome was usually a broken seat in row Z. I completely agree with your other points (McRorie aside, we should be prioritising a midfielder in January in my opinion). The one thing I'd add is that with Considine and Taylor (and McKenna of course) you had real aggression at the back. Players that would play right on the backs of the strikers (through necessity a lot of the time!). That would have spilled a lot down at the feet of Ramadani. Stewart does it to an extent, but nowhere near to the same effect as either of the defenders before him. It's like we got used to having lightweight defenders after a year of Bates, McRorie and - weirdly - Gallagher. Maybe it's just the setup, but I don't think so. It seems like another personnel issue. I don't see Goodwin admitting defeat with his Captain though. As predicted, we're potentially in the situation where we're going to be replacing our entire back four in the next two windows. I think Stewart will be the one saved from the humility.

But you're not saying anything here anyone would disagree with. You're suggesting it has nothing to do with formation and approach, where it clearly does. I know that the fans won't accept the Livi approach (McInnes tried it against the Tims every time), I'm not advocating it. I'm simply pointing out that it doesn't result in a spanking for obvious reasons. We played with a back three and two wingbacks high up the park. Not five players in defence. If I'm predominantly a fullback that is good in the challenge and not particularly mobile, but the manager plays to my weaknesses by asking me to get high up the pitch and try and get back quickly, what do I do? If I'm a fullback who isn't particularly good at anything, and am offered no support from a right midfielder, what do I do? You state the problem (in bold) perfectly. Everyone could see that, and most mentioned it before the game. The manager decided that rather than address those glaring weaknesses, he'd try and attack his way out of it like we've done successfully against other teams. If the manager can't see the glaringly obvious weaknesses in the invidual players' games and then design a system to mitigate them then it's entirely his fault. The formation resulted in all the 3 on 3 situations that occurred, and there lots of them. The frustrating part is that it is simple organisation that you should be practicing every day in training - a switch between two setups. It should be like a military operation, and not one of those crappy Russian ones that keep failing. Start with the attacking setup, get the goal and then switch to the bank of three and five, with Miovski dropping deeper and Duk stretching them in possession. Keep things tight and frustrate for 20-30 minutes, forcing them into the wide areas to cross where they are weak (they had 70, I think, crosses into the box against Livi, scoring from 1). See it through until half time. Alternatively, watch gormlessly on as our fullbacks are caught high up the park, Ramadani is left marking two players and the quick one two leaves Sakala or Kent running full pelt at a centre half with Colak 1 on 1 in the middle - again. Again, nobody is suggesting we'd have won or drawn by being more conservative, just that we'd have increased our chances of doing so. Goodwin reduced our chances significantly.

But that's bollocks though. Livingston used a different shape than us, with worse players, reducing the number of shots by a third compared to us, and only 3 of those on target (that suggests that they largely limited them to shots for distance by sitting in deep - which they did). Our formation and approach left huge gaps, not the quality of player. McKenzie, for example, is a solid left back who does well when close to an opponent and not required to track back from high up the pitch. Miovski is a useful number nine who will convert (most!) chances and is good with the ball into chest or feet. Crucially, he likes to stay high up the pitch and offers very little in terms of back tracking. Duk noises up defenders and is very difficult to get the ball off of, but positionally he's poor, doesn't have a brilliant understanding with his team mates and his tracking back is sporadic (very good when he does, he just doesn't do it reliably). The point is that there are plenty of ways to play to these guys strengths, and plenty of ways that the opponent can take advantage of the obvious weaknesses. The point of the formation in games like these is not to find some instant formula that guarantees success, it's about reducing the obvious gap in quality between the two sides by maximizing our strengths and mitigating weaknesses. Goodwin did one at the expense of the other, very obviously, via the team selection. Nobody is suggesting that our players are better than theirs or that the formation alone can win us a game. Quality of player is obviously the biggest factor, I don't think anyone would deny that, and the Hun are well ahead of us there. The rest is about reducing the impact of that by having discipline and organisation in a particular shape, getting a bit of luck, combined with fan unrest and indecision, maybe even a fortunate refereeing call and a couple of individual errors to bridge the gap. Coming into the game, I thought personnel would be our biggest issue. Not that we don't have good players across the pitch, but that they don't suit this type of game. What we learn from Livingston last week and the games we played well against them under Glass and McInnes was that you need to have absolute discipline and a route to goal. We had that last season in our excellent set pieces and the strength in midfield of Ferguson. That allowed a tight, disciplined performance with the ability to get a goal on the break, and we drew 2-2. The approach to the game bridged the gap on that occasion, because quite clearly they had a much better team than us. At the weekend, I struggled to see a single formation that we could play that wouldn't leave a problem that could easily be exploited by one of their better players, but that's because we're wedded to this remit of "having a go", which seems to be - basically - indiscipline and throwing the game away. If we'd taken Miovski out, put McRorie into midfield and played a 4-3-1, switching to a 4-5-1 when required, we'd only have had the issue of Richardson at fullback (and not fulfilling our remit of attacking, entertaining fitba). That could have been mitigated by having the right midfielder double up and offer Richardson support. We might not have scored, but with Duk in the team there is always an opportunity (although we need to work on our set-pieces). Would it have won us the game? Probably not, I think we're still too weak in midfield, but it wouldn't have resulted in 4 going on 8 goals conceded I'm fairly certain. The longer that you are in the game, the other factors come into play with the Hun home crowd getting angry, players making mistakes. More importantly, in that more conservative approach, our own players make less mistakes as they're not caught out of position as often and reacting to situations. For me, the most disappointing thing was the inability to be flexible during the game. It's the biggest problem with playing Duk and Miovski up front, because the only way you can tighten up is to take one of them off and that looks bad and Goodwin would be unfairly criticised for it. I believe we are good enough to sit on a 1-0 lead at Ibrox, I don't believe we are good enough to go on and score 2-3 more without conceding, which is the absolute essence of what formations do. Formation, organisation and discipline are always the things that make a poorer team beat the better one, and you don't need to spend time watching a McGhee team to know that they're also the thing that will result in an absolute hiding, which is what we were on the end of at the weekend. Formation might not have won us the game on Saturday, but it was the entire reason we got papped off the park.