RicoS321

In Scotland, the refs were - at least a season ago - clearly told to wise up and stop giving pens every time it goes near someone's forearm in the box. I can't think of any good sporting reason as to why it would be changed - what happened tonight was clearly against basic fairness and sporting behaviour. Anti-sport, in other words. Which is exactly what VAR is (and European football I guess).

VAR checks everything, so yes they will have been checking. Nobody in the world would have thought that they were checking handball, which is why everyone thought they'd have been reviewing a foul (I couldn't hear the commentary in the boozer). Everyone watching the game will have seen it touching Jensen's arm in real time, or at worse on the replay, but nobody in their right mind would have thought they were checking for handball because it was such a fucking atrocious decision. I didn't even know it was given for handball until I saw a replay of the ref's signal during half time highlights. My mate had suggested it for a joke, but we all laughed it off. I just assumed that the non-foul was classed as inside the box.

Fairly certain the yellow is correct protocol. They hadn't given a penalty originally. However, the yellow card should be indication that the decision was stupidly incorrect. How on earth can you book a player for being hit by the ball? There's no way that the ref could have been comfortable with that.

The referee saw the possible foul, and didn't call it. There was no reason for VAR to intervene. The handball rules are awful, but they do not state that all connections with a hand are handball. Jensen was terrible BECAUSE HE'S NOT A FUCKING LEFT BACK The above is aimed at Thelin, and the numerous Dons fans that think that he might be because he did it once in primary school.

Anti football pish wins the day again. VAR will end football in a decade if this shite continues - which it will. I'd love it if we were a lot less accepting of it. Jensen kicking fuck out of the VAR screen at the side of the pitch on the way off. We just meekly accept this shite.

Seems like you've misunderstood football.

Martin will be hoping he can find some alcoves In Bruges tonight, to hide in.

Interesting signing. He's currently playing every week in the lowland league. I'm assuming he's not making the step up to our first team from there, so struggling to see the benefits of him signing for us. Then again, he could turn out to be the next Dons legend, like Adam Montgomery before him.

Liam McLeod is definitely coked off his tits during commentary.

Do they just not bother practicing penalties? Seems they're really quite terrible at them.

Hope they get tanked

It's fine, nobody watched that one anyway.

Yes it was. A welcome change from recent years. To be honest, it's great to see them utilise the BBC Scotland channel for these things. Hopefully you'll be providing the commentary for the FCSB game. Just to keep costs down.

Would be unusual for them to send a team to an away leg for a diddy team.

Bowie does. Hibs sub Grant Hanley? Fucking hell Clarke. We get it. You've made your point.

Settle down Derek McInnes

I think Lazetic looks like a player, but await his fitness catching up (which could be a massive thing that takes until January, akin to Nisbet last season). We don't really seem to look at goals as a priority in our number nines under Thelin, more an all round link player that gets the team goals rather than themselves. I don't think Yengi will go out on loan either, but we can look at the evidence from both Ambrose and Gueye that shows we will have a player rotting for a season without improvement unless they get game time. Of course, the idea would be that we get a player in at the same time as Yengi goes out, but I'd argue that would only be because Lazetic is injured and unproven rather than a numbers thing. I don't see a world in which Yengi gets a game if we get another striker in. He'd be down to fourth choice. For a guy who's biggest issue is confidence (I'm being generous, he could just be horse), letting him sit on the sidelines is extremely poor management. Although it could significantly improve the confidence of Sokler to know that the guy behind him is significantly worse. Not a position he's been in.

The Dons > Queens Park Huns

It'd be a difficult thing to guage. The chance of progressing into our first team is very slim too. If the academy system is better down south - and I'm not convinced it is - then they'll have better overall careers despite not getting minutes for the team they go to. You'd have to look back on someone like Lewis Pirie in ten years and see how he's done. The difficulty is getting a comparison. Bavidge in ten years might be something to compare to, but I think Pirie would have been seen as a better prospect regardless. Looking back the way, you'd look at someone like Jack Grimmer and maybe compare to Ryan Jack (Fyvie would have been a better comparison, but for his injury)? Jack definitely had the better career by quite a distance, even discounting for the fact that he's a dirty Judas hun ratface. Anyway, the dirty English clubs picking off our young lads is a problem. Just a difficult one to quantify.

Ambrose can be discounted from any discussion I'd think. If he's not away by the end of the window, I'd expect him to be let go now or in January. The mistake we made with Ambrose is that we didn't immediately send him out on loan when we completed the emergency loan of Nisbet. We shouldn't make that same mistake with Yengi. Get him out on loan. He did a lot of half decent pressing against FCSB, he just needs game time and confidence to see if he can actually play football and he's not getting that with us. You've then got Sokler and Lazetic for one spot, and space for another. To be honest, unless we've got a youth player coming through, most seasons I'd be happy with just two for one spot. By the time a team of our budget gets to their third choice striker, you'd be as well playing a versatile player like Polvara there. I think we'd all have him over Yengi at present. It's not unusual for a team like us to be going into the season with an unproven striker, it's not necessarily a reason in itself to be getting another.

I'm going to remain quiet until the most disgusting news in transfer history is confirmed.

Nobody was being patted down when we went in, just the usual bag checks, and they wouldn't have had the staff on to do so I wouldn't have thought. Edit: I even asked to be patted down, and they refused.

I'm surprised you got into Pittodrie before then. The queues outside at kickoff were ridiculous. I can only assume something went wrong with ticketing. We were nearly ten minutes late getting in. Agree about their pathetic play acting. What was very frustrating was that Nilsen did nothing as Captain to counteract it. For a guy who is normally very vocal, he seemed to hide as Captain (his all round play was fine). When Milanovic got booked for picking up the ball to take a throw-in, he should have been right in the ref's face, and should have ensured that we didn't give the ball back to them (the guy basically kicked it out under pressure and then pretended it was because their player was down). It was a real missed opportunity to get our players worked up and give them a lift.

They're not as good as Celtic, but their number 9 is better than anything Celtic have in that area, which is crucial (unless he just had a one-off brilliant game). I'd go with your line up but with Milne in. Dorrington has looked shaky since returning, and last night he was poor on the ball, especially his distribution. Milne took the ball in difficult areas several times last night and walked calmly away with it. He's a good footballer, just needs to work on his positioning and rashness.

Aye, the number of times the ball came to the back post with Jensen hugging the far touchline. It was frustrating. He wasn't great today, but correctly stayed on because the other subs were more justified! He's just a hair too hesitant and misses the opportunity to get beyond his man on most occasions. Was Dorrington injured? He wasn't great either, but not terrible. The sub should have been to either take Molloy off, or take Shinnie on for Dorrington and put Molloy back to his actual role. I think I said elsewhere that Molloy was never a left back, and that's been proven tonight. He was terrible. Had zero clue how to play the role, and can't play with his back to goal. Otherwise, thought the subs were correct and at the right times. Thought it was Yengi's best 45 minutes for the Dons! Just need to keep Polvara benched until he signs the new deal. Overall, they were the more clinical and dangerous team. But for a wild and unnecessary lunge, they might have given us a doing. Their number 9 was especially good, a top player. I think they'll have too much for us over there. We can certainly set up better against them, but I don't think it'll make a huge difference, we're not there yet. We had glimpses of decent play with no end product from the starting front four. I don't think Aouchiche works with Clarkson either. He faded significantly, and Clarkson was/is better. The referee was worse than any Scottish ref I've seen.