AJF

After all what? A game getting postponed?

Email sent off to Rangers this afternoon:

At the risk of repeating myself, this kind of action will require the majority of clubs to vote in favour of strict liability. I believe the SFA have invited Hibs’ thoughts on the matter after their recent statement and they are open to looking at it.

Unless I’ve missed it, but what has he said about Celtic?

He probably was, aye.

I think it’s clearly a mixture of it all. There’s quite a prominent tweet that went around showing a lot of abuse directed towards Abada online from Celtic fans. To deny it happened is disingenuous but that is quite clearly just one small contributing factor I’d imagine. So aye, the way it’s been worded is probably accurate; Celtic fans’ visible support of Palestine likely wasn’t of any major significance, but the targeted online abuse probably was.

It’s a strange old day on social media where Rangers and Celtic fans both feel that this decision somehow benefits the other side.

No spelling errors but distinct lack of obscure synonyms. Not our best effort.

Just watch some in our support claim the rescheduled fixture the midweek before we face Celtic is a conspiracy to give them more preparation time than us.

Well I, for one, am glad they are taking some time about it to allow themselves to spellcheck it and get the thesaurus out to ensure their statement is concomitant with the underlying issues.

Unless I’m being naive, but I’m assuming the further comment will be regarding the necessity of having to wait for the match ref to carry out a further inspection an hour after the original. Or alternatively to provide details about the rearranged fixture date.

At least if the game is off we can get a round of golf in. Mind the bunker

Well, as early as possible. I’m assuming a 09:15 inspection was the earliest they could get one at as it normally seems to be the set time for them.

If it is, it’ll just be to appease Sky. Just make a sensible early decision

Seems to be requesting more time for ground staff to do more work. But the lack of bounce here doesn’t look promising

Aye, given that Dundee contacted the SPFL it seems as though they probably aren’t confident of it going ahead.

You don't need to be particularly clued up to appreciate that Aberdeen are shite.

Hard to predict what the line up will be for what will likely be a tough match. A lot will likely depend on players like Cantwell, McCausland and Sterling being fit and available. I'd hope after getting a few minutes last night Cantwell will come into contention for a start which might allow Lawrence a bit of a rest. Despite playing relatively well of late, he was one of those that seemed pretty leggy. Hopefully we see Ridvan continue at left back, but I just have a sneaking suspicion that he might rotate Barisic in. If he does, he cannot have a calamitous half like he did at Rugby Park.

I think that’s the main issue. When Clement first came in you could overlook Dessers lack of cutting edge to an extent because Sima was scoring well (I think he was actually joint top league goal scorer at the time of his injury). But now he isn’t available and Silva isn’t that type of player that will replace his goals, it becomes really apparent.

I really don’t think that’ll be the case. If you consider the car crash of a side he took over when he came in and how far behind Celtic we were, he has brought us on leaps and bounds. If we don’t win the league I anticipate he will still retain the support of the vast majority of fans. It’s maybe not appreciated how well he is regarded by our fan base. I’m not sure why you’d be compelled to comment on that, but I was at the game

Meh. Not good enough on the night without playing particularly bad. Benfica just better than us. Thought both defences were very good in the first half. Souttar and Tavernier playing really well. Second half though, we couldn’t really create anything and it broke down in the final third time and time again. Don’t want to labour the point too often but it was a huge risk to stick with Dessers as the only fit striker in the January window. We also looked dead on our feet in the second half. There was a point around the hour mark where Diomande could barely move yet we kept giving him the ball and all it resulted in was him playing a safe pass back to our centre halves as he couldn’t turn on the ball. Joao Neves is ridiculously good for such a young player. He was everywhere tonight picking up loose ball after loose ball. Still, a European campaign we need to consider a success given our start to the season and no great shame with such a narrow defeat over 2 legs to a decent side. Those on here that seem desperate for the fans to turn on Clement will be waiting quite a while I think. Excellent reception at the end.

Aye, I have the same concerns. Although it was interesting to hear Clement's comments yesterday where he said that dealing with injuries was a strength of this team. While that may be the case under his management thus far, it'll only last so long and we really need to get to the bottom of why we pick up so many knocks and injuries. He said when he arrived that they had identified the issue (I'm assuming it was to do with training) but since then we haven't really seen any improvement.

Whatever the reasoning is for the 50/50 split, the fact that there is one simply backs up my earlier claim that Rangers have no say over what the split is. That was laughed at, with the inference made that the SFA would simply just grant Rangers whatever we wanted. So I thought it apt to poke fun at the tooth fairy reference.

As I suspected, 50/50 split confirmed. The tooth fairy exists after all.