RicoS321

First, they were all absolutely shite options. Secondly, none of them were ever happening (which is really what I mean by shite, as in "full of shite", that wasn't very clear). My memory is a bit foggy (like loirston) on Kingswells, but there was no way that the SFA were helping build Aberdeen a new stadium, nor the government. The area was opened up for development. Loirston would still have been going through re-writes to amend the capacity to 15,000 with a design similar to St Darren's. Instead, it was conveniently - and in no way linked - opened up for development. Kingsford was ditched as soon as Cormack actually funded the training ground in return for chairmanship, as he even he could recognise how ridiculous it was. I expect to see that area opened up for development in the coming years. To add, the beach development, much like Dundee's pretty rendering, will not be happening either. I'm ten year's time, both Pittodrie and Dens will still be going strong, and both clubs will be ten years down the road to not moving.

What I mean is that we stayed at Pittodrie because the alternative was shite. We waited for a better alternative, because sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something just because you feel you have to, which was the case with Milne. The beach would be fantastic, but Pittodrie is fine for a good while, we don't need the shiny new thing. If I were a Dundee fan, I'd probably think that the heart was being ripped out of the club by some US bellend, and rather stay put until something better comes along. It's the next 100 years of the club (football will still be being played in the smouldering ruins of the planet), it's better to get it right rather than immediacy.

Just stay at Dens, just like we're staying at Pittodrie.

It looks like an artist rendering of a boring industrial building, with ugly hotel attachment. The location is what makes it. If it is a shite location then it will be shite. I don't get folk that are happy to overlook that because of a shiny new thing. It's the weird attitude that would have had us playing in Westhill.

"For me, it's a horrendous decision. It's extremely harsh. I don't think it's a clear and obvious error. It surprised everybody when he was asked to go over." So, Derek, can you tell us what clear and obvious actually means? No? It's just the Scottish referees and down South though. They just use it wrong. The system is fine.

Do you go to games? Speeding up decisions is essential, it's fucking awful sitting through a decision (unlike watching on telly, when the space is filled with the actual VAR process with various replays). The general consensus around me at games is that everyone is ground down by the time a call is made, and nobody gives a fuck by the end of the process. There is no such thing as a correct call for most things VAR intervenes on (offside excluded, of course), they are all contextual and subjective, and could be argued either way, usually convincingly. They have not changed the handball rule, just the advice to referees, but that misses the point. They changed the rule specifically because VAR was introduced, and have now partly backtracked because it was so fucking shite. What they've backtracked to, is less VAR, because VAR was fucking shite. We can take handball as a good example, the number of actual handballs, clear and obvious in the spirit of the game, that referees miss is miniscule. The last two I can think of involving the Dons were Jenks against St Johnstone and Shankland for utd against us. Anything else is just contrived shite that are accidental, point-blank, nonsense. The point about middle ground is nonsense too, there is no middle ground unless you can define what clear and obvious means. Can you even define what a middle ground is? There is no such thing, and it is an ever moving position, because if the Tims get a middle ground decision one week, then the Huns will claim their non penalty was middle ground the next, and then everyone complains about consistency, officials then start intervening more and so on. If you can define clear and obvious is, with examples, you'd be the first. In terms of offside speed, there is no such thing as an obvious offside call. What people think is obvious is usually not nearly as obvious after the lines are drawn because of parallax. If offside is certain (as opposed to obvious) then the play is stopped by the linesman flagging, this happens regularly. The rest are not worth his job to be getting it wrong - they always have to err on the side of caution. The process then has to be exactly the same whether it's two millimetres offside or a metre onside. You identify the last touch, the lines are presented and the decision made, alongside any calls on interfering with play etc. You can't just look at a camera and claim "daylight" or some pish, because that isn't remotely accurate. Technology is the only possibility to improve the speed of offside calls. Unless you have some other method? Then it comes down to whether you want to spend an absolute fortune on the latest technology. Even then, you still have the game being ruined for a 3% increase in accuracy. It just hasn't been worth it. The reason I get annoyed by and say that we should bin it, is that all of these things were stated in advance and evidenced wherever it was implemented. There is no middle ground and never could be for very obvious reasons (hence why nobody can ever define what that would be). The supposed increase in accuracy is only ever going to be incidental, with the detriment to the game for the actual people in the ground, significant. That gap will never be bridged, ever. Not without changing the rules to suit the technology (thus making the game shite). The most frustrating thing is that we didn't need to do it. We could easily have insisted that broadcasters tone down their discussion on refs, and managers, players and interviewers. We could have made a point of discussing missed chances or poor defending in the same breath as poor refereeing decisions. For there to be a general acceptance that refs make mistakes. We didn't, we let lazy arseholes decide what's best for the fans. Again. The TV elevating the VAR soap opera to a thing in and of itself.

Maybe it's a way of luring Duk home? He's maybe self conscious about his weight, so they're getting Nisbet in to help him feel better about himself.

Was she dead?

Ah, the "its not the technology, its the people using it" line. VAR is the people using it, because every decision is subjective (although offside to a much lesser degree). I don't understand why people think that a product of poor referees isn't going to be poor. It was pointed out a thousand times before it was introduced, with evidence from all over the world. It's shite in every country and at tournaments, with supposedly the best refs in the world on the best version of the technology, it still adds absolutely nothing to the game, with the negatives far outweighing the positives. The only way to get VAR to work would be to have sensors all over the players' bodies and make it a non contact sport, with every touch a foul. Offside would have to remove any notion of interfering with play, and just return to offside being yes or no. The decisions would be lightening quick and undeniably correct. The game would be shite. Until someone can define the parameters of clear and obvious (which is impossible), it cannot work as an effective system, and that has been obvious from the moment it was mentioned. The next point people make is that it should only be used when it's really obvious, which cannot be defined either, but what they usually refer to is something so infrequent that the cost of the system could never justify it (it then becomes a goal-line technology equivalent). It probably does work for offside, if you're comfortable with the three minute wait, but it goes entirely against the spirit of the rules. It has been an overall negative for the fans of the game in every country in which it's been introduced. It needs to be binned.

Let's not talk about that. Although, in the spirit of conspiracy, when that draw was made it was just essential they got a scum game, and there was no way the Huns could be trusted to make it to the final.

I don't think they could plan for every eventuality, because some games are on Tuesday, and St Mirren might have got through instead of, or as well as, Kilmarnock. That said, you're right, they knew Hearts were playing in Europe this week and they could have just made an assumption that the next best placed team in the league would maybe get the furthest and so have arranged for them to be playing each other.

In his last season, or half season, I can't remember, Nisbet bulked up considerably and started playing like an actual number nine. He was good then, and he'd very much improve our team on that form. However, it was a 6-12 month part of his career that may not ever be replicated. He's also got Hibs in him, which means he'll automatically be a lazy, overweight jakey, who'll spend more time in the physio room.

Nisbet rumoured....

Not surprisingly, that start to the season sees Colin Bell end his Dons management career.

Good move. I still think there is something there, but he needs game time. He's still young enough that he could turn out to be decent. Needs to find that ability to do those driving runs he used to do when out on his first loan. He's a big lad and with a bit of bulk added could be a great player.

What does the W stand for?

They haven't though, they've leaked to the press that they "might" request a postponement six days before a match, setting the Dons up to be the bad guys when they correctly tell them to fuck off. Although I assume we just won't respond unless they actually request postponement. Bit of mind games too, I guess, setting up both excuses and trying to keep the Dons guessing on whether they'll rest players or giving us false confidence in that we might be playing a team that's shattered. The notion that teams should help other teams in Europe is dogshite anyway. The group stages are an absolute disaster, that give clubs obscene amounts of cash in return for them unnecessarily running with massive squads. Teams experiencing it either for the first time, or as a one off event, have to run the gauntlet of trying to do three times as much recruitment as normal, making it more likely that they'll make an arse of it and be lumped with shite players on long deals (that happens anyway, but the groups exacerbate the problem significantly). If Scottish football decided that it would equitably share European prize funds then we could talk seriously about trying to get the best outcome for all teams, but that isn't on the table.

Yep, they've lost their best players to full time teams and are playing against full time teams. It'll be interesting to see how they perform against the bottom six, part timers. The full time teams are just going to get further and further ahead I expect.

We need a down vote button

I thought they said he was struggling with fitness on the radio yesterday, but could be wrong. Maybe he's struggling to come to terms with the fact that he's a dirty Judas Hun cunt? Hopefully not though, and he falls out of favour, rotting on their bench, until one day another player trips over his rotting corpse on their bench, injuring themselves in the process.

I think it's healthy, on a football forum, to give a first impression of someone based on the small amount of evidence available. If it turns out to be wrong, then nobody loses anything. I think he looked like a wide player that likes to drift in field a lot, like McGrath, and perhaps adopt a sort of free role. If that doesn't suit our system, then he'll be instructed to remain wide. I think it's easily soon enough to say that he clearly has football intelligence and workrate, and I'm certain he's going to be a great addition.

I don't think that would be the frame they'd have chosen. I suspect there'd be another one after that when the ball is last touched, that would possibly take the player's shoulder beyond the leg of the defender. The point is that it's not a terrible decision by the linesman, who made his call quickly, and gave immediate clarity for everyone in the ground, and with zero complaints. It highlights perfectly the fallibility of VAR too, in that frame selection is absolutely vital. I suspect the automatic frame selection in the very expensive VAR would produce a different answer to the manual frame selection very regularly, and I'd argue that for these types of close call it's just as accurate to go with the linesman's call as it is the lines. We simply don't need the pretend millimetre precision of the shitey lines.

Great to have a game without VAR today, with the offside goal looking to be a good call. A tedious three minute wait for that would have been zero improvement. Interestingly the Huns now the only other team to benefit from a ref giving a "maybe a freekick" call (the other being the Tims benefitting from the opposite overturn in the semi against us). It stands to reason that refs are reffing their games to a different standard. Letting the game play at a freekick incident (not offside, obviously) is just fucking ridiculous. If the ref blows for a freekick then it's because he thinks it's a freekick. He hasn't missed the incident. Thus, by definition, it (using VAR) cannot be anything but re-reffing the game. People (stupid people) will argue that it's great that you let the play roll and let the goal stand and allow the ref a second look, but there is absolutely no way to apply this logic with any consistency - because it completely ignores the silent evidence. In order for this to be fair, you'd have to take into account all those decisions where very soft freekicks were given for a foul by an attacker, and imagine what might have occurred had the ref allowed play to continue. It makes no sense whatsoever. The ref should just have given the freekick as happens in all other circumstances, because that was his decision.

Not going to be big money because he's not worth big money. He's a consistent player for us, at our level, but doesn't really have any areas that are easy to improve (pace). Hopefully he'll sign a new deal with us and we get another few years out of him. The fact that he nearly joined Atlanta before his last contract renewal suggests he's willing to go elsewhere, and maybe that's his preference, but I hope he stays.

Think it's decided by the teams in each fixture, where one of the teams doesn't normally have VAR, which seems fair enough. Anyway, normal domestic decision making resumed for the Hun.