Iakona

historically it’s been said that European refs(mainly Spanish) are a lot quicker to blow their whistle or hand out bookings than you would find domestically. It was a concern our fans constantly raised when Kevin Thomson played in Europe. A booking in Europe isn’t always a booking in the SPL.(wether it’s celtic, Hearts or Aberdeen playing) I don’t particularly want to defend the gobshite… but I don’t think what Macgregor said has anything to do with preferential treatment. The implication is that you need be much smarter at this level…. Which is something we all know.

Games much better now

He looks like a proper bombscare

https://instagram.com/_tesssarah?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== fill your boots

Yilmaz isn’t in the euro squad- I feel this is mentioned on every page now.

I think they are missing afew players tonight. Certainly up top(they are playing a winger as a striker)

O’Neil still has a thing for big men then.

They do have a wee love in though. All smelly tramps!

They’ve always sung YNWA, afew Dutch clubs sing it IIRC. Quick google shows Zombie is another one they play regularly, version by someone called Ran-D.

He's been out since February so not much of a surprise mind you. Much happier Carvalho didn't make it in time, they are much better defensively with him on the pitch.

Aye that was down to the cartridges Nintendo used. When you take inflation into account, the price goldeneye released for in 1997 is the equivalent of £102 today. The games industry always seemed to avoid inflation, which has made the jump all that more jarring… But AAA games on the whole are far more expensive to produce thesedays. I don’t like Starfield, but even at 60 quid there’s clearly enough meat on those bones to justify the cost of entry.

As someone else said, Lawrence has spent a large part of his career playing on the left wing. It’s not a new role for him.

Saw Barcelona play away to Espanyol and they took about 15 fans for a local derby.

Yilmaz isn’t in the euro squad. Not sure about Roofe out there either. For me if he’s not playing in the box he shouldn’t be playing. Lammers upfront would be like that time we played Aribo up top. But I’m not sure he’s capable of the big moments like Aribo was - interesting choice though.

Wouldn’t be surprised if the board are giving him til the next international break. Which is only afew weeks away. Anything less than 3 league wins, progression to the semis of the cup and 2 respectable efforts in Europe should see him out on his arse.

Perhaps a sad state of affairs and doesn’t actually say much. But he’s arguably been our “best” midfielder this season.

It was hyperbole. I didn’t think anyone would take it literally to the point where they believe I’m claiming we would spend 100% of the game in our own half…. Just most of it. My original post was also quite clear that there will be opportunities to get at their defence and cause them problems just like PSV. If we need to be far more clinical with our use of the ball, let alone finishing. if our midfield doesn’t turn up again.. we will possibly have repeat of PSV. Hopefully all this is for nothing and we scud them. Then after the game I’d happily tell you I was wrong and buy you a pint to celebrate.

Okay let me simplify it for you then “if they turn up, and our midfield don’t raise their recent performance levels. - we will very likely struggle to get the ball out of our half” because that’s that’s what I was implying.. I’m not saying we won’t be able to counter them. if you can’t read between the lines then my apologies. Ultimately I don’t care what your eyes tell you. People quite often claim to see shit with their eyes that didn’t actually happen. The stats show we spent most of the game under pressure in our own half. As I said in my original post there will be opportunities to get in behind… but we need to be far more clinical.

I mean… in the home leg we had 30% possession and managed a total of 164 successful passes over 90 minutes. The pressure maps show we spent most of the game playing with and without the ball in our own half. We did not handle their aggressive press or tempo. When the ball left our half it was typically because we either went route 1 on the counter or we were getting rid of a hot potato before they pressed us… hoping Dessers would draw a foul. Matondo played 23 minutes and had almost half our chances… Our only really period of extended pressure in their half came when they didn’t have a single CB on the pitch.

Yes, saying their defence is worse than our is a wild take. Coming to that conclusion all because you watched “a wee bit of their game.”… against the reigning La Liga champions is wild. We will struggle to get out of our own half if they turn up and we don’t raise our performance levels. They will dominate possession and they aren’t going to let us pass it around our defence like SPL teams do. We have already seen what PSV did to us… who play the same exact way as Betis.(PSV literally played with 1 CB against us so they weren’t a defensively sound unit either)

Whilst what he said is a wild take. He is correct that defensively they can be got at. They will set up exactly how PSV did against us, so there will be space in behind and opportunities on the transition. Pace and set pieces against them is vital… Sadly their aggressive press and the tempo they play at will likely be too much for our midfield once again, in turn our defence will need to try and sustain the pressure. If they turn up and we don’t up our game… we won’t get out of our own half.

Aye if they struggled with the likes of Lewandowski and Felix they’ll be fearing the worst when we come at them with Dessers and Sima.

Lammers is possible one of the worst strikers of the ball I've ever seen play for us.

It’s pretty much the only way they can get on the ball. If they rely on our midfield to get it to them they’ll never get a touch.

Not all issues are visible to us though. Just cause someone looks okay on the outside doesn’t mean they haven’t got some shit affecting them. I’m not going to speculate what it could be as that’s how rumours start - but if Beale says there’s been extenuating circumstances then we should just take it at face value and move on. Not everything needs micro-analysis.