RealWorldRich

Neither did Johnson, the cross was too high. If that's a foul there would be 5 fouls per corner.

Why do you think it's a foul? It's 2 players jumping & contesting for a ball that's too high for both. That wee cheat Johnson tosses himself hoping for a foul and is even holding his leg.

That's exactly what I was thinking with this Aberdeen decision. What Don Robertson did was essentially the opposite of the advantage rule. He let the fouling team play on essentially. I think that's pretty bonkers and somewhat unworkable. I understand it's similar to the offside situation, but linesman letting it play out is because VAR can decide factually if it's on/off if the end result is a goal or penalty. A ref doing it doesn't make sense to me, because he's not going to leave the decision of a foul in the build-up up to VAR, there needs to be an on-field ruling, and the likelihood is that VAR is very unlikely to overrule that on-field decision of a foul. So letting play run on was entirely pointless.

What's everyone's take on this piece of refereeing by Don O'Robertson? I was watching it live and thought he'd given a (controversial) penalty (I'll explain why I don't think it's a penalty at the end*), but when he turned to face the other way I realised pretty quickly, that YET AGAIN he'd given celtic their typical 'foul in the build up' get-out-of-jail-free card (which was never ever a fucking foul) with a 6 second delay in between. It looks like an awful piece of refereeing but will the SFA say it was the correct protocol? Firstly, the supposed foul takes place at 00.03s in the clip above. 2 players jumping for a cross, but the cross is too high and neither make contact. It's never a foul, if it was, could you imagine a corner kick? Players jumping into each other while not heading the ball must occur at every single corner (provided it's crossed in and not passed short). To call that a foul is absolutely scandalous. But, here's the thing, initially he doesn't. He allows play to continue and even let's an Aberdeen player shoot from inside the box. Why? Well, one explanation I've seen is that ref's take a similar approach to linesman in that they let play go on for a few seconds in case there is a goal, then make a ruling and check it with VAR. Is that the correct protocol? If it is, say Aberdeen score from the shot he allowed to take place, his plan all along was to then blow for a foul on Johnson? Let's face it VAR was never ever overturning it anyway; so the situation was only ever bound for scandal had Aberdeen ended the sequence with a goal - or in this case, a penalty. The level at which celtic are protected at this point is unreal, celtic's first goal came from Kyogo robbing the CB of possession with 2-hands on the guys back and pushing him to the ground. I prefer to see ref's allow some contact so I don't care too much it was deemed a foul, but it was more of a foul than Hoilliet jumping with Johnson to contest a header in the clip above. * in the interests of perspective, I might be one of the few who didn't think Carter-Vickers kicking Hoilett was a foul, in todays game it probably is given, but Hoilett doesn't play the ball or even get himself in a position to play it, he's literally on the floor doing the splits in order to stretch a leg into the path of Carter-Vickers kicking leg, that's dangerous play in my book. That is a player willfully trying to cause contact with another player or initiate a foul (without playing the ball) and could easily have ended up with either of them being injured. We're seeing more of these types of situations from guys desperate to win penalties and it will probably be stamped out soon.

What he does with his left foot isn't very robotic. I'm not sure how long his ankle can put up with his weight coming down on it with every swing.

You just make the defenders 'line' 5cm thick. If the attackers line is beyond it then he's offside. If it lands within the 5cm line then he's on by a margin of computer error. (5cm was the example given by the poster above btw, I think half of that (2.5cm = 1 inch) is enough. I'd also make offsides apply to feet-on-the-floor only (which seems to be the case with encroachment as I recently learned). This was a disallowed goal at the world cup by Lauturo Martinez: His planted foot is a yard onside ffs, it looks like his ear is offside, a brilliantly timed run & finish chalked off for a complete nonsense.

A margin of error does solve the problem. A guy who is 5.01cm offside has much much less of a complaint than a guy who is 00.01cm offside. The reason why there needs to be a fairly significant margin of error is because the VAR lines are trying to apply a very exact science to something that's rather inexact.... for example I highly doubt a football pitch is a perfectly flat rectangle where both sidelines and bylines are EXACTLY parallel. Most pitches will probably have some kind of camber too. The Z axis too (the vertical line the draw doen from s shoulder or knee) placed on a 2d image is never going to be accurate either. And perhaps the biggest problem is that the passing player could have his foot in contact with the ball dor a few frames, which frame they choose could be the difference between on & off If the recieving player is sprinting.

Morelos failed to score more than 18 goals in 4 of the 6 seasons with us (and for context he played a minimum of 43 games every season at Rangers). Dessers is on 19 and counting on his first season. The criticism of him this year has been way over the top, he's a talented forward that's lacked consistency for sure, but I think he'll kick on and do much better next year.

The worst would've been the year we won 55 and they were having pints in Dubai 😂

The worst you've ever seen? Really? This sides 1 game away from a double and 3 points behind with 5 to play in the league. The worst Rangers side I ever seen wouldn't be in the hunt for a domestic treble and qualified for knock out stages of europe. The worst Rangers side I ever seen probably had Sandaza in it.

Shankland had chances today as well, duffed a header at the back post that he should've scored. Thought in general he lacked composure. I think Shankland is a decent striker for Hearts, if we signed him I'd expect him to be backup, off the bench type striker - probably a better option than Roofe now given his inability to keep fit. But there's no way Shankland is better than Dessers, you can see the clear difference in levels.

Was poor today poor today and defenders are wise to him looking to cut inside. Played very well when he came off the bench vs celtic, changed the game in fact. The lad needs to figure out a way to maintain that level of performance because today was well below it

That donkey Silva cost him both an assist (when Dessers could've tried for a hatrick himself and unselfishly squared it) and a third goal (by failing to square it to him late on). Dessers is a good player that will do even better with better players around him. He clearly likes balls fizzed into feet that he can take in his stride. We need to play quicker football.

Do people think Shankland is better than Dessers? Really?

He had the chance to score from 5 yards but seemed to dive instead 😂