Motherwell fan at work labelled this as a relegation six-pointer and hard to argue with him based on the current form and league table. 

For Neil Warnock, his first week was a bit of a gimme as no-one expected anything from Ibrox, and no matter how badly we played v Bonnyrigg we were probably still going to navigate that tie.

Now we're at the point where he's under pressure to deliver results. A draw does nothing for us, a defeat is unthinkable.

Expect Gartenmann to start, but will it be for MacDonald or Jensen with the latter injured at the weekend? 

Not sure any of the 'fringe' players did much on Saturday to warrant a place.

Similar starting line-up to Ibrox probably. Can see Hayes being back in.

Dunno what to expect. I don't think we played well at Ibrox despite the platitudes, and we definitely didn't v Bonnyrigg. 

55 minutes ago, OrlandoDon said:

have to assume that last night was the end of a back 3?

There's actually nothing wrong with a back three, so I hope not. We've had some good performances this season in a three. There are good ways and bad ways to play a back three of course, and we repeatedly choose the bad ways, none more so than last night. Robson's bollocks was playing Clarkson in front of the three, Warnock's is playing every player out of position and throwing in a Morris wing back for a laugh. 

A four gives us the most options for changing things up and suits the most number of players in our squad. I would think that every game at pittodrie should see us playing a four, but perhaps away at the Tims or something might see us shift to a three. The best approach we've had to a three this season has been in a 3-4-2-1, cramming the midfield and getting McGrath and Polvara high up whilst leaving two sitting to cover the fullbacks and keep things very tight. I could see that still being a very useful option, especially in games if we need to hold a lead. I don't think last night gave us any indication of what a back three was supposed to do.

On 14/02/2024 at 22:52, Slim said:

Shouldn’t the line be drawn from the defender’s elbow?

Miovski’s dotted line doesn’t seem to intersect properly with his solid line.

Is this supposed to be like Hawkeye in tennis or is it just some Hun in a cupboard with some crayons?

I’m not sure why we are needing to be drawing lines at all to be honest. Offsides and penalties are the worst bit about VAR. Why the VAR ref cannot just look at the picture and use his brain to say “he looks level with the defender therefore goal” I can’t quite understand. Instead we are disallowing goals that look very, very marginal. All the line drawing does is give more ammunition to the conspiracy theorists amongst us.

The other issue bugging me is the time added on. If we just stopped the clock when there was an injury everyone in the stadium would know how long there was left.

46 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

I’m not sure why we are needing to be drawing lines at all to be honest. Offsides and penalties are the worst bit about VAR. Why the VAR ref cannot just look at the picture and use his brain to say “he looks level with the defender therefore goal” I can’t quite understand. Instead we are disallowing goals that look very, very marginal. All the line drawing does is give more ammunition to the conspiracy theorists amongst us.

Eh? Are you serious? Why would someone looking at a picture taken by a camera out of line with the incident be better than a linesman (who has been trained for years to be in line with the play) in real time? That's probably the most bizarre take I've heard about VAR. At the risk of sticking up for it, you clearly have zero understanding of how it works. Nobody is "drawing lines", they are merely there to give a graphical representation for people. The VAR officials select a frame at which the ball was played (the final lines are of a thickness that allows for the difference in frame rate, always favouring the attacker), they also select the furthest forward part of the attacker and defender, excluding hands/arms and the computer will verify. The cameras are calibrated from the goal line (or perhaps other fixed point) and a decision is calculated based on those points. The lines give a visual representation of that calculation. 

Fixed camera positions will give a massively distorted view of reality (I thought everyone knew this instinctively, I'm getting into the realms of father Ted here: "the smaller ones are far away"). You have to imagine the image rotated until it's in line with the blue line. Look at the image in question to illustrate this. On the far side you have Bevis Mugabi (next to McGrath). You can see the relatively straight line of the grass passing outside him on the near side, going right through him and exiting on his opposite side, but nobody argue that he is straddling the line there, he's clearly closer to our goal than the line, but the optical illusion presents him half over the line. 

The linesman gave offside in real time, which was enough for me, and enough for everyone for 100 years. In my opinion you just ditch VAR. Your suggestion doesn't work, because it very obviously doesn't work, and would be less accurate than the linesman (Douglas Ross excepted). They could just stop showing the illustrations of course and simply present the computer calculations and algorithm to ensure it was the same for both sides (which it very obviously is). However, it is the one area in which software developments will catch up fairly quickly I expect. They should be able to develop a simulation that rotates the fixed camera around the centre of the lengthwise pitch (for example) to the point of the offside line (always the furthest point back on the defender), so that people could view the image without the parallax. This should have been a prerequisite to using VAR for offside in my opinion. Secondly, they will likely get to the point where software can be used to determine both the point of leaving the player's foot and the furthest point on the defender and attacker. I would also expect the time it takes to make that decision to be massively sped up. Again, that should have been a prerequisite.

Jes Rico, as usual you are massively overcomplicating fitba. All I was meaning was that if an offside decision is so marginal that we are needing a computer to decide for us then we should be giving the benefit of the doubt to the striker which is what was the case before.

Most games now have enough cameras to give an angle which gives a decent view albeit it may not be perfectly in line. Just look at a couple of TV replays and make a judgement, that’s basically my point.

You’re asking why would that be better than a linesman looking at it? The reason being that the very nature and pace of the game means it is almost impossible to look at both the ball being kicked and the guy about to receive it at the same time whereas with a still image you can. I don’t think any of us want to see goals being disallowed because a computer has determined that the striker is a millimetre offside.

 

56 minutes ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

Jes Rico, as usual you are massively overcomplicating fitba. All I was meaning was that if an offside decision is so marginal that we are needing a computer to decide for us then we should be giving the benefit of the doubt to the striker which is what was the case before.

Most games now have enough cameras to give an angle which gives a decent view albeit it may not be perfectly in line. Just look at a couple of TV replays and make a judgement, that’s basically my point.

You’re asking why would that be better than a linesman looking at it? The reason being that the very nature and pace of the game means it is almost impossible to look at both the ball being kicked and the guy about to receive it at the same time whereas with a still image you can. I don’t think any of us want to see goals being disallowed because a computer has determined that the striker is a millimetre offside.

 

I'm not overcomplicating anything, my opinion is that we should stick with a linesman making a call, as has worked adequately since offside was introduced. The linesman's decision was absolutely fine on Wednesday, it was a close call, he flagged immediately and you could tell by Miovski's immediate reaction that he, himself, thought he was offside. The fans in the RDS were quick to sit down with few complaints (I thought he was way off initially, it was a very good run).

You're suggesting something far inferior, where an out of line camera is being used. You must realise that a camera being out of line would be a massively flawed way to do anything, and if you thought that precise nature of the shitey computerised system leads to conspiracy, then that would be four hundred times worse. I genuinely can't believe anyone would think that was acceptable. If Miovski had been on the six yard line, he'd have appeared about two yards onside with an 18 yard camera, that's how the parallax effect works. It's why linesmen are trained to always be in line with the last man, it's the most important part of their role. You must have seen countless examples of a ball that looks over a line from one angle, but not from another, but the definitive angle is always on the line? 

The complicated part is what I suggested would improve VAR, not what I actually want. These things will be happening anyway regardless of what you or I think. They're all software related and will be no different to the game going fan than the existing situation, just that we'd be removing the controversy caused by people not getting the whole camera position thing.

 

4 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

The other issue bugging me is the time added on. If we just stopped the clock when there was an injury everyone in the stadium would know how long there was left.

Risk entering the american sport world.

Clock stops when the ball 'goes dead' so while the game timer says 90mins have been played you've actually been in the stadium for close to 4 hours

 

Edited February 16, 20242 yr by tom_widdows

21 minutes ago, tom_widdows said:

Risk entering the american sport world.

Clock stops when the ball 'goes dead' so while the game timer says 90mins have been played you've actually been in the stadium for close to 4 hours

 

No, why would you stop the game when the ball goes out of play? The ref doesn’t do that at the moment, it would only stop for the same reasons that time gets added on at the moment namely injuries and where people take a ridiculous time to make a substitution. It would just give the fans, both in the stadium and watching on television a better understanding of how long was actually left. The only person at the moment who knows how long is left is the referee which doesn’t happen in any other sport. The ref often gets grief from managers and players at the end for adding/not adding time and just having a visible clock for all to see would take all of that away.

Not really been following things the last 10years or so but i always thought it was the 4th official who worked out the injury time.

Give the ref one less thing to do

For me offside should only be the players feet, easy to manage. Even for VAR.

What I can't abide however is the second phase nonsense. Lino keeps flag down, play goes on and then if there isn't a goal it's never looked at. ( A corner with rangers and dessers against us ). I see this at all spfl levels. What's the point of the lino of not to raise a flag?

A slightly different take on this is ( and kyogo is a master of it ) standing ten yards off with your hand up. Winger runs onto the ball and then delivers into the box where you're ahead of the CB because you had a ten yard start. Utterly ridiculous. If you're off, you just should'nt be allowed to get involved.

1 hour ago, redordead said:

What I can't abide however is the second phase nonsense. Lino keeps flag down, play goes on and then if there isn't a goal it's never looked at. ( A corner with rangers and dessers against us ). I see this at all spfl levels. What's the point of the lino of not to raise a flag?

That's not what happens. If the linesman doesn't give offside then it's because he doesn't think it's offside. If the goal isn't scored, it is brought back. 

I'd disagree that this isn't what happens in practice