Ya Bezzer!

Missed the first 7 minute or so. Hapoel look technically better than us but hadn't shown a lot of cutting edge before they scored. Great delivery into the box but our defending is really terrible. Hapoel player gets a free run. Two or three times when we've been in a good advanced position we've either put in really poor crosses or set pieces. Our final ball is still a problem. Looked like we were acquitting ourselves reasonably well and were at least competitive but it's a poor goal at a poor time to give away and since this team can keep possession quite well I think it's going to be a struggle in the second half. Even at 0-0 I was always a bit worried we'd run out of gas in the, presumably, high temps.

The problem with these types of games is you always feel Scottish players can't press and play at pace when the temperature is scorching. The forecast for Thursday night is over 28C. If we are going to win in Israel it won't be the same way we did today.

Really good attitude today. At 2-0 we could have stood off but we didn't and got that third goal. Second half it was all about getting the clean sheet and we've closed Aberdeen right down and made sure there was no prospect of a come back. We've caught a wee bit of luck today cos Aberdeen have put in a shambolic first 10 minutes but we took advantage of that and did everything you'd want us to do. The question is - can we do that without getting a big helping hand? Time will tell I guess. Still got to prove we have another gear but today was encouraging.

Let's face it Aberdeen are having a disaster but I was really pleased about getting that third goal. Too many times we've had teams on toast and then backed off. There has been blood in the water today and we've looked hungry. Aberdeen will organise at HT so now it's about defending it and looking for goals on the break.

Excellent. Aberdeen have been there for the taking from almost the first minute. Was a bit worried me might go 2-0 up and sit on it but we've been ruthless. More goals please. If we are sharp there is a cricket score here.

When I heard McKenna was off I thought it would unsettle them but Aberdeen are all over the place. We should be pumping this team. Get a third before half time and it's over Johnny.

Aberdeen struggle for goals and McInnes is a defensive manager by nature. If we can get the first goal we can cause them a problem cos you don't see them scoring 2 or 3 very often. However I don't see us winning the midfield battle tomorrow. McCrorie has done well since joining and they have Lewis Ferguson and Dylan McGeouch. Meanwhile Campbell is struggling to make the game and he basically is our midfield. You'd probably be happy with a point but I would expect Aberdeen to grind out a result as they tend to have done this term.

I'd love it if Robbie Crawford proved me wrong but we need a wee bit extra quality and as I see it we've brought in a player who is around the same level as players we already have. It seems a bit random and a bit....desperate. I'd imagine he'll play wide right rather than through the middle but who knows.

I agree he did not pull him down but he defended the situation poorly and everyone knows if you are wrong side and a striker feels any contact they go down....and usually get the penalty. Having said that I think Mugabi has been the best of a bad bunch this season. Declan Gallagher's drop off has been enormous. Is he doing a Morelos?

That's such an over simplification. If you go through results of 4 man midfields v 5 man midfields you'll see that is not the case. I looked at Aberdeen last season and they played 4-4-2 four times and W1 D2 L1 with three of those teams playing 5 man midfields and one playing four. It's a bit late to delve any further but Kilmarnock were literally top of the league in December a couple of seasons ago playing 4-4-2 almost every week. There is life in 4-4-2 yet.

4-4-2 isn't dead. Especially at our level. Too many people are watching top end of the game tactics and think that they translate into success with average or poor players.

Fair play to Carson. Bailed us out big time. Outside of Allan Campbell we really don't have any one that's even bang average.

We have a corner! Excited!

O'Hara has been comically bad tonight.

T H I S I S D I R E

It's worrying that there has not really been a quality gap of any note.

They are garbage so we can still win this in ET but the problem is we are garbage too.

It was a soft penalty but the defending is so poor, Mugabi is wrong side and he does put a hand on him so I'm afraid we just have to deal with it cos we can't defend properly and to be honest Coleraine deserved an equaliser for their 2nd half performance. 1st half wasn't great but we are 2-0 up and instead of building we get much, much worse.

We don't deserve anything on this second half performance.

Defending from that free kick was atrocious.

They should have scored right before we did. They have had other opportunities to get shots on target but fortunately they learned their shooting technique from limbo dancers.

2-0 up but not a very impressive performance. Our defending has been garbage and the way a team like Coleraine, essentially a Scottish League 1 level side, can carry the ball from the half way line to our box with not very much opposition just isn't good enough. There was a point when one of the Coleraine players took a two yard touch 35 yards out and still managed to get on the ball, run at us and shoot. At 2-0 up I want to see us play some decent football with the pressure off but it doesn't really look like coming cos basically we are not very good.

Looking already like The Battle of Pish Defences.

Missed the first 5 minutes or so but the pitch looks pretty bobbley. If that's how you spell it!

My view is if you can beat Maribor away, then you can beat us at home. Doesn't mean we are doomed to defeat but we cannot afford to be complacent especially since our general level of performance hasn't been good over an extended period of time. We might have scored 5 against Glentoran but we are still miles off from being consistent scorers so we need to make sure we are more secure at the back than we were in the last EL match. Conceding once could cause us a lot of problems.