rossco87

They aren’t. They are correct in that they take the closest frame they can to the ball leaving the players foot which could be +\- 0.02s or up to 30cm (depending on speed of players and direction of travel) and using that as an arbitrary reference for a definitive answer. A margin for error would be factoring in a zone where the result would have to be “we don’t know - go with the on-field decision” or something similar. Personally I don’t think just making thicker lines works as the margin for error will vary depending on the speed and direction players are travelling at and also the moment the ball is played vs the nearest frame that is available, hence I would advocate that the margin for error is varied taking into account those elements.

That’s a little misleading. It is consistently correct (leaving aside squinty lines / lines drawn in the wrong places arguments) in that the lines on the freeze frame shown are correct. At present we have no way of 100% accurately getting an image of when the ball leaves a players foot. The margin for error is 0.02s which, as above, can be up to 20 - 30cm depending on the speed and direction players are moving at. In most instances that variance isn’t going to make a difference, however in very tight calls there is no way of definitively saying that the image the lines are being drawn on represents where every one was at the exact moment the ball left the players foot.

Never been for the line of sight idea as, as you say, just moves the issue on to another aspect. If the new automated system can be that accurate and quick then that changes the dynamic completely and we are in the realms that the technology can deliver a definitive answer. Until we get to that point though (and let’s be honest we aren’t affording that technology up here and other leagues are probably going to struggle - La Liga found out last night they don’t have goal line technology anymore ffs!) I think the system needs to factor in a degree of tolerance that is relative to the limitations of the technology. Using technology to figure out what the error range between the frames (and then maybe putting on a +\- 10% safety factor) takes away some of the argument - i.e. if player x is a judged a fraction outside the zone even after an allowance for potential movement has been made then there really isn’t an argument as VAR has given every variable possible within the limitations of what it can do. The instances where it is so close that it is even going to matter are probably minimal, but the implications of getting them wrong can be huge.

I suspect that kind of long term view shaped the January window. Clement has all but said there was no money for transfers available, however suspect if the right target had been available something could have been done. Given how Clement speaks about his teams playing (high press, mobility, quick on the transition) Shankland would have been a stop gap option at best and would have meant we would have had less to spend on getting the best option possible in the summer. Not doing anything in January was a massive risk, however I think panic buying with a short term view and then not being able to properly address the issue in the summer was also a massive risk going forward.

100% with you however I am not entirely convinced the technology is up to being as accurate as it needs to be to make such tight decisions. Image below was discussing a call from August 2019 but is basically highlighting that VAR uses 50Hz (50 frames per second) and picks the image that they can be certain the ball has been played. In the one they were using Sterling was running at 23.4kph and would have moved up to 13cm between frames so there is a possibility that he could have been onside if the ball was actually played earlier. Easiest solution for me would be to build in a tolerance factor to the really tight calls. Should be pretty easy to get an algorithm to figure out the relative speeds that the players involved were travelling and therefor maximum distances covered between frames - i.e. attacker could have moved 20cm forward and defender 10cm back between the frames, therefore there is a 30cm range where the technology is not accurate enough to definitively say where both players were. Carry out the offside check as normal but if the distance between the two lines is within the range then it is too close to call and goes back to onfield decision (or attackers get the advantage even). The main issue at the moment is that we are pretending VAR for offsides is 100% accurate. For the vast majority of cases it is, however for really tight calls the technology being used can’t be accurate enough to give a definitive answer.

Was saying to my mate today - we have effectively gone through (going through) loosing the league twice in one season. Obviously we were never truly out of it when Clement came in, just as there is still the possibility we could turn it around and go on a title winning streak, but most fans had written off the season last year only for us to get back to being favourites to win it and through it all away all over again.

Be interesting to know what Bailey Rice’s thoughts when he can’t get near the squad as “he has lots to learn” and then has to watch Tom Lawrence put in a performance like that… Same could be said for several young players - I know he is injured but Lovelace has had to watch 2 seasons of pretty atrocious forward play and barely been given a sniff of an opportunity.

If there is money on the table from Saudi this summer I would take it. Nobody can question his return in terms of goals and assists but he isn’t the same player he was (ago catches up with everyone) We need a major rebuild this summer and need to raise funds. Also his continued presence around the club creates too much debate around his role in any successes and failures. Part of the rebuild needs to be a clear intention to break from the cycle of underachievement and whether folk agree or disagree as captain throughout that period Tav is always going to be linked to those discussions.

While I think that is pretty reasonable and fair my concern is there are things he could be doing to try and right this slump. He could move away from the 433 and try and find a formation that suits the players he has available. He could try dropping Tav off all the corners. He could recognise that Lawrence was contributing nothing, or that Sima was done 10 minutes before he took him off. He could try and publicly criticise the players and the performance. It doesn’t need to be OTT but he has tried being gentle after Motherwell and Ross County and it hasn’t worked. The injuries and the squad he inherited are obviously out of his hands, but not trying to find ways to work around them causes me some concern.

While I am probably going to give him some leeway as he is working with a squad severely lacking in quality and with a lack of mentality, there are some major red flags now appearing: - we have been on a run where we have played with no definitive style for large parts and even whole games - the same issues keep reappearing (eg Goldson’s long balls to nobody or Tav taking all the corners) - he is rigid in his tactics, meaning we are playing players out of position as we are scratching around looking for quality He will be given time to reshape the squad over the summer but starting to worry the run of results up until the Motherwell game was an abnormality and not what we can expect long term.

Absolutely raging at that performance. They knew what was on the line after the abomination that was the weekend and turned in such an insipid performance is totally unacceptable. The last few weeks should be the end of the discussion on numerous players careers at Ibrox.

What makes it even worse is they have tried to cover it up. Sportscene said on Saturday night they hadn’t been provided with the usual footage for VAR offside decisions with the lines and when they had asked the SPFL they had been told (paraphrasing slightly) “The SPFL doesn’t need to issue the footage, in this instance the decision is so clear and obvious that there is no need to provide the VAR footage”. It has echos of the handball that was ignored and then conveniently found to be offside 30 minutes later in the OF at their dump. In both instances the broadcaster has effectively outed their lies (at the time the Sky commentary team effectively confirmed they had heard no conversation of offside in the discussions between the ref and VAR), but nothing will come of it.

Another absolute red neck for the SPFL management. The list of fuck ups is so monumental I am wondering what it would actually take for the clubs to decided enough is enough and vote to get rid of the current management and put in place a leadership group actually capable of taking the game forward…

Yup. Whole thing is just a(nother) sorry example of the poor leadership from the league. It was bad enough that our game was called off, but that should have been a major warning sign to the “powers” that run the league that there was an issue. They have just tried to ignore the problem and hope it all sorts itself out, forced Motherwell to play on a pitch that didn’t look like it was playable and now the rearranged fixture is in doubt (while every other ground in Scotland has been fine) never mind what happens post split if the weather doesn’t suddenly change and bring us dusk to dawn sun until the end of the season. The instant our game got cancelled the severity of the situation should have registered with them and alternative solutions should have been put in place (like force Dundee to play at another ground and foot the expense for ensuring it was compliant and not just floated out as last minute save face).

Yeah I am an NFL fan so probably influenced by that. My opinion is that the game is in effect being re-refereed remotely as it is, but is only (and can only ever really be) done partially as to do so would need massive breaks (ironically the side of NFL I least enjoy) to allow VAR to fully review every incident from multiple angles to make sure nothing was missed. If we use Sunday as an example, in my opinion under the letter of the laws of the game (and that is a different argument) every decision was correct and the main discussion I have seen is more on whether the rules are right, rather than whether they were implemented correctly. My only gripe would be that no one saw Goldson’s handball, therefor was it actually a clear and obvious error? The way VAR is set up is totally flawed - for example the referee could incorrectly give a corner from which the ball brushes a defenders arm which is so slight no one picks up on except VAR that asks the ref to review. In that scenario the clear and obvious error is the awarding of the corner, not missing the handball, but the result would still be a penalty. If you follow that argument through the the logical conclusion it is only a matter of time before you get folk arguing that every decision should be open for review (the other example that springs to mind is two yellow cards where one - or both - aren’t bookings can’t be reviewed) which would just kill the game. Letting teams ask the referee to look at an incident they feel particularly aggrieved by, but forcing them to be judicious about that decision in case the referee disagrees and then they can’t highlight something later in the game, gets us closer to where we were before VAR came in. I am generally supportive of giving the ref the chance to review something on instant replay, just feel the way we have implemented it with remote referees trying to review footage in real time is clumsy.

Thing is we can’t get perfection. To me the main gripes are: - inconsistency in what gets picked up vs what gets overlooked - minor incidents and even incidents that nobody in the stadium has picked up on getting reviewed - the feeling that the game is effectively getting refereed remotely as when called a ref rarely sticks with his own decision - teams still feeling aggrieved that decisions they feel are wrong the referee is not being asked to review Giving teams the opportunity to challenge a decision they think is wrong keeps the spirit of what VAR is trying to achieve (giving the ref the benefit of being able to see an instant replay of an incident to assess if they have called the decision correctly) while ultimately keeping them in charge of the game. If it went the challenge route there would need to be a cap put on the number of challenges to stop frivolous challenges. I threw out one but could easily be 3 per game (max 2 per half). To some extent if you use it on something that the ref disagrees on and sticks with his original call that is tough shit - the whole point of VAR is meant to be clear and obvious errors get picked up not that the game is constantly reviewed, so if you ask the ref to look at a marginal call and they stick with their original decision then the fault lies with the team making the challenge. The perfect example for me is our goal that got chalked off in the first OF game. When the ref reviewed the footage by the laws of the game there was a foul in the lead up to the goal. Any foul that has a yes / no answer has to then logically be clear and obvious when reviewed; however not a single celtic player claimed for the free kick at the time or complained to the ref after the goal was scored, I would therefor argue in the context of the game it was not a clear and obvious error made by the ref (obviously we will never know if they would have appealed it but given then lack of protests I doubt it).

It’s why VAR in the current setup doesn’t work for me. I had to watch it 2 or 3 times to pick out the Dessers during the clip (and I knew what I was looking for). Handballs generally get picked out as watching a replay focussing on the flight of the ball can quickly throw up if there is a possibility which can then be further examined. Similarly a player making a meal of going down, while we don’t like it, highlights the incident to the degree that the ref / VAR will look at it. Given the lack of fuss Dessers makes about it I can understand how VAR can overlook that if they are quickly looking over the replay to see if there was anything obvious that needed to be reviewed (it is obvious to see the pull on Dessers once you see it but within the context of all the players in the box it is easy to overlook). Since day 1 I have said VAR would work better if each team had the possibility to ask the ref to review one incident per half (could keep the review if it is successful). It stops decisions being overturned for minor infringements that teams aren’t even claiming for; the fact that if you ask for something to be reviewed and the ref sticks by their original decision you then can’t ask for anything else that half to be reviewed would encourage teams to think carefully about reviewing 50:50 calls as there may be something more serious later; it also puts the referee back in charge as the dynamic of being asked to review a decision by a manager or captain is totally different to being told be one of your colleagues they think you have made a mistake.

For me his biggest issue is that in his first season he was played on the right. It was clear he was uncomfortable out there but the few chances he got on the left he seemed a bit brighter (not saying he was amazing but was clearly not as pish). I am convinced he was signed as we were expecting to sell Kent and he was to be the long term replacement but then Kent stayed and was deemed undropable by Gio & Beale. Going forward I have seen enough glimpses that if he can get over his injury niggles and get a consistent run in the left of the attack he could be a useful player to have in the squad and who knows where he can kick on to. On the converse however, given how little he has produced to date it is hard to argue that his time with us to date has been a failure.

So far this season we’ve played: celtic Hx2 Ax1 Hearts Hx2 Ax1 Kilmarnock Hx1 Ax2 St Mirren Hx1 Ax2 —————————— Dundee Hx1 A x2 Hibs Hx2 Ax1 Motherwell Hx2 Ax1 We need to play 2 home and 3 away fixtures post split (one of which is against them) so really we should be looking for either Hibs or Motherwell to make top 6 as it should mean the fixtures for us (and them) are pretty straight forward to figure out. My understanding is that they try to ensure the title race (and then race for European spots) get the same number of home and away games and that at a minimum every team gets at least 18 home games (I’m pretty sure teams are only allowed to lose out on 1 home fixture) which might mean fucking around with a bunch of other fixtures. Dundee make top 6 and it’s really anyone’s guess who our 3rd away trip is out of Killie, St Mirren & Dundee. Hibs or Motherwell make the top 6 and I think they should have to go to Killie and St Mirren (again Dundee make the top 6 and who knows what they will come up with!!!)

I suspect there is going to be some amount of pressure on Don Robertson to make sure this goes ahead. A postponement would cause too much of a headache for the SPFL in terms of the split, and also quite a lot of embarrassment for them in terms of why there is a team in the top flight with such a poor pitch, add in the fact that Motherwell were forced to play on it at the weekend.

Our record there recently is very poor, however while it makes good topic for discussion and a bench mark for why we need to improve it is pretty much meaningless going into each game, who knows the next game could be the start of us going on an 10 game winning streak in the fixture… What teams under Warburton, Caixinha, Murty, Gerrard, Gio or Beale did or did not do when they went into that dump bears no factor into what this current team does. What does is whether or not this current team have the strength of character and tactical guidance to go into that kind of environment and get a result. Our league form (coupled with some of the European performances) suggests that this group of players is forming that mentality. Of course it is still going to be a tough fixture, but I can’t see many of the teams under the managers above coming back from the first half display, or going behind again in the 86th minute and rescuing a point.

For me glass half full. At half time and in the 87th minute we had given them the impetus that they only needed to match our results to be champions - getting the equaliser flips that on its head. On top of that as concerning as the first half display was, we showed some amount of character to get ourselves back into the game twice and arguably we are in a position to get stronger with more players coming back from injury. There has been a lot made out of the fact of our last 7 games we only have 2 at home while they have 4 of their last 6. Of those 7, 2 are pre-split fixtures (one of which is against the team currently 11th in the table) so can’t really grumble about that. Post split we both have 2 home and 2 away against the rest and then the OF game. Home advantage definitely counts for something in that game, however we gave ourselves the breathing room that we don’t need to go there and win (assuming we both pick up max points) while they do. Our recent record there is utterly pathetic, but at some point that has to start changing - the second half yesterday gave an indication that maybe this manager and group of players has the mentality to go and be the start of that change.

Thought the officials had a good game, with the one exception that Johnstone was very, very lucky not to see a second yellow. They can debate if it should have been given until they are red in the face but once Beaton has decided it is a penalty for me it is a cast iron second yellow (it’s not an accidental collision and Silva would have been moving into a dangerous position in the box). The penalty against us was pish. Was 100% a penalty under current implementation of the rules but would not have been a couple of years ago and none of their players even claimed for it.

I get your thinking but our run of fixtures are Benfica (7th), Hibs (10th), Benfica (14th), Dundee (17th), Hibs (30th), them (7th April). We don’t have the time or fixtures to try experimenting with formation, most I could see is maybe trying pushing Ridvan up one with Borna in behind if we really are at that level of emergency. Hopefully by the time we play Dundee we might be seeing some players returning, some much needed rest for the rest and ready to kick on for the final push!

I get what you are saying - but they will have been buzzing at half time at the potential we are dropping points. That will have taken the sheen off their performance tonight for them. We can concentrate on ourselves, they know they need to either beat us in an OF or hope we drop more points than them.