RicoS321

Both. He played well for a guy that hasn't played all season, but because he hasn't played all season was shaky! He's not great defensively, so that was already a given. He was very shaky on the ball, which is the bit we expect him to be okay at, but settled after the first half of the first half and was fine from there. Basically, his default is shaky (also known as pish), so anything better is okay.

Defence was fine, McGarry played well for a guy who hasn't played all season. Wouldn't want him against the Tims, as he was shaky defensively, but he wasn't bad. Struggled to get past his man, but used the ball well for the most part. He was better than Milne was when he came on, but I expect a lot of that is due to him being on his wrong side. Overall, it was a reasonable point. We are hitting a wall, I think, in terms of the squad. We looked tired, and the fresh legs didn't feel particularly fresh. It's the first time I felt that Thelin didn't quite get the changes right. He was slow to change it, and the sporadic changes just seemed to interrupt the flow of the game rather than being freshness. Given they were the better side at times, that might have been deliberate. Mitov was a big loss in that second. He's loud and commanding (even when he's not playing well or coming for things he shouldn't). Players are confident in passing it back to him, and we didn't have that at all with Doohan. I can see the niggling little injuries starting to happen as we move into winter, and I think we'll struggle. Would have been good to see Polvara get on today.

Yasss. Clarkson. Great finish. Shady Mo again

Hearts lads dropping like flies. Delayed reaction to @BigAl's wish for them to suffer career ending injuries.

I totally didn't notice the McGarry inclusion. Jesus.

Wild. No Rubi or Shinnie. That's a fair chunk of aggression missing. MacDonald probably deserves a chance, and I'm glad that he'll at least be able to play on his right side for once. Palaversa been poor of late, so interesting to see how he gets on. Polvara on the bench again, good to see.

Low head IMO

I'd start with the team that started the second half against the other Edinburgh cheek.

Getting a bit woke in your old age?

Yep, that was the mistake I meant. As you say, it's those balls down the middle that should be bread and butter for Rubi. It's a concentration thing in my opinion, which is probably quite difficult to teach. It just takes switching off for a second for it to cause problems and he gets his timing wrong. It's probably why a lot of defenders improve with age, as their focus improves. I like the fact that we're bringing through two young defenders, and I'd be reluctant for us to break up that partnership, but it certainly comes with drawbacks.

Aye, there was really only one defensive arse up for the goals last night, and that was down to switching off at the last. You could tell Shinnie was annoyed with himself for giving away the freekick, but 99 times out of 100 he'd get away with that. There was one corner when Bushiri got a free header, but we otherwise defended them quite well. I have an intuitive dislike of zonal marking too, but I'm sure that they've run the numbers on it and found some benefit. I'm wondering if it's changed since VAR? Were teams concerned about giving away penalties through grappling and shirt pulling in the box? Is it because teams spend way more time organising corner routines with players blocking and hiding behind one another making it difficult to pick up men? Either way, there's nothing difficult about zonal marking. All areas should be covered, and if there's a big hole it's because someone somewhere in the chain has left their zone. I guess it's just as likely that someone will leave their zone empty in zonal, as it is that someone loses their man when marking. It could be argued that the instructions never change in zonal, and so there shouldn't be the confusion of picking up the wrong player. I'd be interested to see if we give away a lot more corners than others? We seem happy to let a lot of balls come in from wide rather than go to the man, so perhaps we give away more corners and inevitably lose more goals from them. Perhaps someone from the BBC can provide an analysis?

What a goal from Sokler though. A draw a fair result.

Devlin. Legend. Some finish.

Great goal. Morris again with the run. Easy stuff.

That's been coming. We've not been great again.

Getting his team lines from here it seems.

Good. Pittodrie is fucking ace.

He was maybe behind Shankland?

McKenna wasn't a stand out for Ayr. A lot depends on confidence and physical attributes, and I think Duncan struggles with the former. He was very good at Peterhead, but he seems to have had the strong running beaten out of him during the last few managers. As @BigAl says, it'd be good to see what Thelin could do with him.

Hopefully smash these cunts. St Mirren, Hibs and Hearts away are traditionally games that we pick up zero points in. Despite Hibs' form, they've looked okay in a few of their games before spontaneously combusting,so it won't be an easy one. If they can go relatively error-free then we could be in for a surprise. Obviously, I think if they make a mistake - and that goalie of there's certainly has a plethora of them up his gloves - that results in a goal, then I could see us tanking them. Will be interesting to see how we line up. I think Clarkson will drop out (which is a shame, as I actually thought he was the better of the two between him and McGrath) and probably Morris too. I think we'll start Nisbet and Topi, with McGrath and Duk, leaving Morris to score four when he comes on. I wouldn't be surprised to see one of the midfield two drop out too, although Palaversa has been poor in the last couple of games. Would like to see Polvara get some minutes.

I thought he had too, but watched it on the highlights and he flags for the throw. Obviously we don't know what they're saying to one another on the mics, but Beaton was across so quick, I doubt they'd have had time to converse.

I think he only gets a yellow to placate beaton's ego. The linesman is right there and gives the throw. Why does Beaton believe he has a better view? There were no Dons players charging at Gogic and trying to start a fight, why couldn't he take three seconds to ask the linesman if he'd taken the ball cleanly? I'd be raging with a yellow for that, he was completely in control and a good bit ahead of the Dons player. They'd be as well banning sliding tackles.

Good lad. I like Djokovic. I reckon Murray will get him winning some titles again.

Yes and no. Nisbet will go where he's most likely to get it played to him. If they're sitting deep, then he'll hang back. Like he did for the goal. But aye, they were fairly pointless.

You mean the thing that has resulted in several goals this season? We probably overuse it, but we often play against teams with deep lying centre backs, which makes the square ball easy to cut out. The stats guys will have looked at it and decided that's where we'll get the most goals (including today). It's fairly normal to see balls fired across either blocked for a corner or straight through, the percentage ball is likely the cutback. I don't remember any today where we were beyond the fullback and their centre backs weren't already in place, we were quite slow to get up the pitch when Morris broke.