accies1874

I completely agree with you, but the argument will be that if they're stopping the game anyway then they might as well check everything else involved in a goal. Spanish folk would have been just as raging as we are had McTominay's goal been allowed to stand. Off the top of my head, we might actually be in the negative for VAR decisions now. We "gained" those two you've mentioned, but lost the goal last night, a penalty against Ukraine (which definitely wasn't a penalty) and Moldova got a penalty against us through VAR. Means we're entitled to complain about it now imo.

Scottish football was in a strong position as clubs could see just how shite VAR was in other countries, including the one right next door that we're exposed to all the time, yet they still chose to bring it in.

I think McTominay would've taken it anyway. MacPhee's shown before that he'll put less reliable takers on set-pieces if there's a chance that they'll deliver what he wants. McTominay's taken a few in-swinging corners before and I think the plan was always for a delivery like that. I thought we were a threat from set-pieces all night, and it was good seeing us adding long throws to our repertoire.

Spot on

Yes! A very flukey one at that, but I won't spoil which game it was until someone gets it

Much closer

Nope

Anyone fancy taking a stab at who the last player to score a (legitimate) free-kick for Scotland was, and in which game?

Having some poindexter take away the kinds of moments we go to football for just because of a marginal offside is why VAR is in fact the problem, not the people running it.

Hickey's performance on the left tonight just proved that @craigkillie was correct all along imo. Playing on the right was clearly holding him back.

Really disappointing night. I thought the first half was a bit of a struggle. Spain pressed well and we had no out-ball anywhere on the park, but I think the change of formation just before-half time helped us get into the game as Christie could sit on Rodri and it gave us two targets to hit as well as some more space for the wing-backs. After about an hour, I was honestly feeling pretty relaxed that we'd get a point as Spain didn't look all that much better than they were in March, but the difference was that they had Morata in the middle rather than Joselu. I still think we would've equalised had Hickey not slipped, which is gutting for him as he was incredible - maybe the best I've ever seen him play. McKenna did well, too, and I thought Hendry was important as a leader in the middle and showed composure to deal with Spain's press quite a few times. Oh, and VAR is shite.

Makes us better off the ball, imo, while also providing some flair down the left in Tierney's absence. That said, Gilmour in the middle of a three could allow McGregor to replicate some of Tierney's runs from deep. I don't think that's true in recent times. I can only think of McKenna starting ahead of Cooper once in the past couple of years (Armenia at home) and Cooper tends to be Clarke's go-to CB sub to see things out.

I probably prefer Adams in these games as he's generally a more reliable out-ball whereas Dykes prefers the rough and tumble which can be very useful but isn't always helpful. They're both capable of being brilliant or terrible tonight, though, and I reckon Clarke will try and go with as close as possible to the team that beat them in March so Dykes will get the nod imo. Gunn Porteous Hendry Cooper Hickey McTominay McGregor Robertson McGinn Dykes Christie

When Hazard was on form, I absolutely loved him, but he was capable of bottoming out unlike many others at his level nowadays. Still glad I got to see him, De Bruyne and Lukaku in full flow once, even if it was pummelling Scotland.

I'm not worried about us qualifying, I just really hope we get it done on a night we're playing. I know Norway away was the big moment of the campaign, but it would be a shame if fans don't get to celebrate qualification with the players once again.

Thiago Motta on Lewis Ferguson: If this isn't high praise then I don't know what is. While it would be great to see him go to a bigger club/higher level, he's in a perfect place at the moment with a manager who appreciates his strengths and accommodates his weaknesses. I think both Ferguson and Motta will be in demand and it'll be sad when they're broken up.

Ah well, it's never good when someone gets completely dropped from the matchday squads but it's decent that we have him available in Tierney's absence (though I reckon Cooper will get the nod).

Expected that but it makes me wonder about McKenna. He's not been in Forest's squad for the past three games, but there's no chat of an injury and he's still in this squad so has he just been completely dropped?

The most egregious examples of "box ticking" are when Sky just give jobs to whoever happened to play for one of the teams they're showing. I'd much rather listen to Karen Carney or Lucy Ward than some guy you forgot played for Fulham in 2012.

I had no idea that Sean and Liam Kelly are brothers. Does anyone know if a brother ever scored a goal into another brother in Scotland?

Shame for Robertson as up until that point, that was the best I've seen him play this season.

Was just about to post the same. I'm glad it wasn't given, but it seems that refs taking the easy option in those situations also extends to those on VAR.

Finding themselves ahead after poor performances has been their M.O. this season.

It's hard for me to articulate this without sounding Brexity, but I don't like teams signing foreign players for their academies as I think it sort of defeats the purpose of a youth system. Same with counting folk who have been in your academy for about a year as academy players. I think there are a lot of good things about how globalised football's become, but I also think that makes it even more important that you have young, relatively local players coming through on a somewhat regular basis, especially when you're like Celtic or Rangers and don't really represent anything about the country your club's based in. Even a quarter of the way through a good season with Accies, it's been annoying that that academy players are getting knocked further and further down the pecking order in favour of run-of-the-mill Scottish lower league footballers.

I was surprised that he opted for Mumbongo ahead of McGlynn, but with us going a lot more direct at that point in the game, I wonder if he fancied Mumbongo to make more of those situations (which he didn't in the slightest). I hope we see McGlynn in from the start in one of the next two games as he's had a positive impact from the bench plenty of times, but it just seems like Rankin doesn't trust him yet, which is surprising for us because we haven't seen him from the start but it could make sense if we were seeing him every day in training.