Kmcalpin

What would he cost, as he's under 24?

Some interesting comments from Lee Wilkie in today's Dundee Courier. "I would scrap VAR in Scottish football tomorrow. The technology affects the game far too much in a negative way and we saw the very worst of that in Dundee’s seemingly endless game at Kilmarnock. Of course, we want to help referees get really close calls correct but the technology gets involved far too much. And it affects the way players play the game, too. Again, not in a good way. I think players dive even more now than they did before. I’m not talking about blatant dives where there is no contact. I’m talking about situations where the forward feels a hand on the back and hits the deck. They do that knowing the Video Assistant Referee is watching and they might get a penalty out of very little. For me, that’s not what football should be about. It is a technical game but there should still be the physical aspect of battling for the ball with someone else. When VAR reviews a decision, they only look for contact but crucially not whether that contact is enough to constitute a foul. You will see strikers running into the box thinking more about initiating contact with a defender than actually scoring the chance. VAR in Scotland has not had many successes to shout about and Saturday at Rugby Park certainly wasn’t one of them. An eight-minute delay doesn’t help anyone. Spectators don’t want to be hanging about that long and, even though Dundee eventually got the penalty, it didn’t help them either. It doesn’t look good for our game. The SPFL and SFA are probably breathing a sigh of relief that didn’t happen in one of the title-deciding fixtures coming up."

Very pleased for you. Well done!

Sorry, I couldn't disagree more. I don't, in any way way condone what Slattery seemed to do (it wasn't proved beyond reasonable doubt), and he has been punished by the SFA. In short he was singled out for special treatment. We've seen several other breaches of Rule 77 since with no action being taken. As the governing body, the SFA and its employees must not get involved in petty vendettas against clubs. It and they should act with the utmost decorum and fairness. If it cannot do this then it will lose the respect of clubs, players and last but by no means least, the paying public and rightly so. At that point, the games a bogey. As Spiderpig says, the club and in my view the Society should call out the level of refereeing and VAR incompetence publicly.

I picked up a very pertinent point from the Society socials about the penalty decision yesterday and its about timing. At the start of the sequence, the Hearts player heads the ball whilst lying on the ground. Thats a foul. Its only after that that Welsh kicks him. The "victim" was so badly injured that he had to roll about several times.

I think if we were offered £500k for Ward he'd be off. McCracken? No way. He's always got a blunder in him, just not against us. Not rated by Dundee fans I know.

I wouldn't think there will be queues of clubs after him. Much of our clean sheet record was down to our style of play.

I think any faint hope they had of catching us disappeared at full time.

Good post Joe. We should take this up with the Society. Also, during games we should make our feelings known about poor and/or inconsistent decsions in the time honoured fashion (note: no abuse).

Rumour on P & B that Callum Hendry may move back to St Johnstone in the summer.

In very recent times, Gorrin. Plenty before that. Tam Forsyth, Willie Watson, Peter Millar, Gordon Soutar, Steve McLelland, Graeme Forbes......

There's no doubt that in recent months, refereeing/VAR performances have deteriorated from an already low base. We seem to be on the receiving end of continual poor potentially game changing decisions or 50/50s going against us week in week out just now. Yesterday was just another example. The old adage that things even themselves out over a season will certainly not apply this time round. I have no problem with VAR, although it could be improved. What I do have a problem with is how its being used to rereferee games. I often thought that fans complaining about referees were simply being biased and paranoid (I include myself in this). However, Graeme McGarry recently penned an article in the Herald questioning whether we're being refereed differently since the Callum Slattery iincident. A sound article which I believe has basis in fact. Despite our style of play, we seem to be awarded far fewer fouls than the opposition. Maybe thats why we go down so often? A physically robust Hearts side were penalised a mere 7 times yesterday. Now as I wasn't at the game, it may well be that Hearts were extremely sporting in their treatment of us. But it seems like a trend. Its certainly affecting our results and brasses me off no end but we shouldn't let it get to us Starsail and San. https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/26008883.motherwell-refereed-differently-slattery-row/

HD on Pie and Bovril commented that some of our players have tailed off a bit in recent weeks. McGinn and Welsh being mentioned. I'd also add Watt to them. For this game I'd like to see us shake things up slightly. Nicholson is surely due 45/60 minutes and why not give Jordan McGhee, a tried and trusted Premiership performer some game time. JBA certainly seems to stick to his favoured 11-14 come what may.

Good post. Its a definite weakness in the squad, which has cost us. We are soft as a team both mentally and physically. I suppose JBA could go one of two ways for next season. Stick with his principles and try to sign more/better pure footballers or become more pragmatic and sign some stronger/more aggressive individuals. Maybe the two aren't mutually exclusive. .

Yes, although we've scored a fair few goals this season, all too often we've been powderpuff in front of goals and yet again its cost us. We also have defensive frailties that Wellfan pointed out above. If officials are going to be pernickety they could have looked more closely at Hearts' opener. It seems to me that Findlay (No 19) was holding/pulling our defender when he headed the ball back across goal. As for the penalty, I'd say it was 55/45 not a penalty. A very close call which, once again, went against us. You could argue that the lad's heading of the ball of the ball was involuntary, but I'd say that according to the laws of the game it shouldn't have ben awarded.