craigkillie

There is no such thing as level, there will always be one player slightly further forward than the other. The offside law is the exact same whether there is VAR or not, the only difference is the level of precision to which a decision can be analysed.

Fraser was in the last Euros squad and continued to be picked after that, so I think a lot of the "bad egg" stuff is overblown. He definitely seems to have attitude issues but I don't think they'd be to the extent that he'd be completely ruled out. I would be astonished if Calvin Ramsay has even the tiniest chance of being involved, he can barely even get in matchday squads at English League 1 level. Likewise, I don't see any way he would possibly even consider Doig or Taylor as right wing-backs in this system, they have absolutely none of the requisite abilities to be able to play that role, both are basic one-footed left-backs. Taylor played a handful of times at right-back for Killie (not under Clarke) in his first season after breaking through, and maybe a couple of times in central midfield in Clarke's early games in charge, but has never played anywhere other than LB/LWB for club or country in the last 6 years. As far as I'm aware, Doig hasn't ever played any position other than LB/LWB in his career - I could possibly see a future for him in a Tierney-style centre-back role. If we were using a makeshift RWB in an emergency situation I think it would be Ryan Jack or possibly even Stuart Armstrong. I don't think we're anywhere near O'Donnell being in the squad though, his time has passed. If it's not Ralston it will be McCrorie, I can't see anyone else being in consideration at this stage. Johnston hasn't played nearly enough football to be thinking about.

I saw this on the Sky Sports website (I think), but it looked like it was just a copy and paste job from the England squad information and not necessarily actually the case.

He was aye, that's why it's particularly brilliant to see them failing to get out of the Highland League yet again, even if it's not the same chairman any more.

What was the point in paying that expensive German consultancy firm all that money then, if their big answer was to appoint a guy you already knew about and considered. Almost as though they saw Cormack coming a mile off.

They haven't really actively avoided it, there's a not insignificant chance that it could be decided on that date.

This is a bit of a difficult question to answer since there were two major periods of reconstruction in Scottish football, first in 1975 to go from two divisions to three, and then in 1994 to go from three divisions to four. Some teams were in the old second tier (of two) for large periods without ever making the top flight, but that's quite different to being in the current second tier without going up or down.

Buckie's title win being partly down to beating a team 13-1 on aggregate in the final week of the season isn't really doing that argument very much good. That same team subsequently losing 11-0 on the final way on their way to conceding over 150 goals is also not a particularly good argument for this being a sensible league structure.

He's had a good season on the whole, just had a couple of high profile stinkers recently. Which is sort of standard for him, 8/10 about 80% of the time, 2/10 the other 20%. Not ideal for a centre-back.

Rangers have been awful but Hearts not taking advantage at all.

If Turnbull had gone down south and been remotely decent at Cardiff he'd be right in this conversation, but he appears to have done nothing since he got there.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how VAR works. Referees are not allowed to do this.

Surely it's the Highland League's "turn" to get the extra team in the League Cup anyway? And that will work out nicely for the cartel since they can do their pals at Brechin a favour.

They do make a decision in these offside situations, the flag either goes up or doesn't at the end of the play.

Just because you've been told something in the thread doesn't make it true. It is not the referee's job to "create end points for VAR reviews", it is his job to make the decision he thinks is correct. The only reason the foul is the stopping point for the VAR review is because it was plausibly a foul. If he had given that decision and it actually turned out that there was no contact between the players or that Hoilett had just brushed against him, then VAR would have been able to review the penalty. The only alternative here, and what would have happened pre-VAR, was that Robertson would give the foul straight away and Aberdeen wouldn't have had the chance to give a foul. You keep claiming that Robertson could simply have made no decision and waited for the ball to go out, but there is no such thing as making no decision. If he had not awarded the free-kick, then his decision would have been that there wasn't a foul.

You aren't making any sense here I'm afraid. The referee gives what he thinks is the right decision on the pitch, he can't make what he thinks is a wrong decision just so that he can go back and check his other decision on the screen. All over pretty much every single other thread about VAR you've got people (wrongly) rattling on about how referees have abdicated responsibility making decisions and are happy to just let VAR do it for them, yet you seem to be arguing here that this is exactly what he should have done.

There have only been 7 occasions of a club beating one in the semi and the other in the final, and only 4 of them came with both games at Hampden. Hibs in the 1901/02 Scottish Cup beat Rangers in the semi and Celtic in the final. The games were at Ibrox and Celtic Park though - semis weren't at neutral venues in those days, and the final was supposed to be at Ibrox but had to be moved because of the first Ibrox disaster. St Mirren in the 1925/26 Scottish Cup beat Rangers in the semi and Celtic in the final. The semi was at Celtic Park and the final was at Hampden. Killie in the 1928/29 Scottish Cup beat Celtic in the semi and Rangers in the final. The semi was at Ibrox and the final was at Hampden. Hibs in the 1972/73 League Cup beat Rangers in the semi and Celtic in the final. Both were played at Hampden. Aberdeen in the 1976/77 League Cup beat Rangers in the semi and Celtic in the final. Both were played at Hampden. Aberdeen in the 1982/83 Scottish Cup beat Celtic in the semi and Rangers in the final. Both were played at Hampden. Aberdeen in the 1989/90 League Cup beat Celtic in the semi and Rangers in the final. Both were played in Hampden.

They have never beaten any version of Rangers at Hampden.

Celtic's subs made them much worse, and came at terrible times. The only one that improved them was taking Yang off, and that would have been true even if they hadn't bothered to bring someone on for them. Ultimately at the end, Roos was utterly terrible in the shoot-out and Aberdeen hit several bad penalties, while Celtic, Hart aside, were pretty much spot on with theirs.

Examples have literally been given earlier in this thread, but it's a bit of a needle in a haystack situation to try and find these things because they're rare and in most cases hardly memorable. People don't tend to go around with big lists of all the refereeing decisions ever made in their head. If the officials think a goal might be scored then they're supposed to hold off on giving the foul or offside decision. I don't see how this weights things towards Celtic here. If he had followed your approach of not bothering to follow the proper guidance for these situations then he would have just given Celtic a free-kick straight away rather than allowing for the possibility of an Aberdeen penalty.

They absolutely can and do overturn subjective decisions if they think a mistake has been made. In this particular incident they presumably didn't think there was enough evidence that the referee was wrong in his original decision of a foul. This is how VAR is supposed to be used, we should only see a referee being overruled when he makes a clearly bad decision.

This is just simply wrong. The referee has to make a decision on the pitch and he shouldn't award a penalty if he doesn't think a penalty is the right decision. Robertson sees the potential foul and believes it is a foul, but allows play to continue because there is a promising attack. After the challenge on Hoilett stops the attack, he then goes back and gives the original free-kick. That is his way of indicating to VAR that he thinks it is a foul. VAR can then check the full incident, since play was live throughout, and there is a potential penalty to check. They will first check the free-kick to see if they think the decision is correct, and if they believed Robertson's decision was wrong then they could then roll on to look at the penalty decision. That is the correct procedure here.

I'm talking about posters on here, it's Clarke's job to know so that's different.

It wasn't even close to a foul on MacDonald, it was just shit defending and he knew it.

Unless the Euros go extremely badly or extremely well I'd expect Clarke to want to have another go at the World Cup.