Skyline Drifter

I think our support appreciated Joe Thomson enormously when he WAS playing. Terrific midfielder and one we were very disappointed not to get in the summer. To be honest I thought he might have got a premiership team when he left Celtic.

I don't "know" the ins and outs of the deal. I've read them but I forget now what they were. The detail doesn't really matter. The point is they sold the rights for what they could get, it promotes the League overall which is a good thing, and the money goes into the overall League pot for distribution to ALL League member clubs in line with the prize pot distribution model. The same way the main tv deal money does too despite the actual inconvenience of it pretty much all being put upon the Premiership clubs. I fail to see the relevance of when the deal was negotiated. It has always been the case the tv deals for the League are put in the total League pot. The clubs from the bottom three divisions benefit far more from that than their associated appearances will generally justify. I'm sure the Championship Chairmen are less than enamoured at the "new" situation as their clubs are more inconvenienced then they were before and in some cases no doubt financially worse off as, depending on your finishing position and how often you are covered at home, you may benefit less than you lose. For what it's worth, the home clubs are allowed to sell some of the electronic advertsing time for themselves and keep the money so there is a minor direct benefit from it which will at least partially offset any reduced gates.

As has been said before, if Championship clubs want to moan that they should keep all the income from the Championship tv broadcast deal, are they also happy to let the Premiership clubs keep all the income from the Premiership broadcast deal? Championship clubs make more money from one Old Firm game than the Premiership clubs in total will be getting from the Championship broadcast deal. Is the situation ideal for supporters? No, it's not, particularly not ours next weekend, nor Ayr's who seem to have had a disproportionate amound of Friday games to deal with. But the idea that the tv distribution model is in some way skewed against the Championship clubs overall ir pretty fanciful.

Not unless Friday rush hour is about 3pm! Realistically for a 7:05 ko in Dingwall you would want to be beyond Perth by 4pm at worst. To be honest I had expected it all along with County likely to be winning the League. Its personally a bit of a pest. I havent been to County in at least a decade and was intending to come up for the weekend this time but its now far more awkward. I cant travel Thursday as I have another commitment that night. I will prob still go Friday but not sure I can be arsed coming back Friday night. Might stay in Inverness. Mixed feelings for our fans in general. Its clearly a nightmare for those actually intending to travel but given very few probably would have anyway, the tv coverage is a bonus for the fans who wouldnt have travelled.

He is one of the u20 group, has first team squad number 29 and was on the bench for a couple of games last month.

Yep, stand by all of that from Ayr's highlights. It's never a handball free kick. It's hit at Todd from about a yard or so away and he doesn't move his arm. The assistant is standing about 4 yards away on the side of the arm and gives nothing. Greg Aitken from the "wrong side" of the incident gives the free kick. It IS however a penalty. Todd doesn't see Crawford coming and swings his boot through him. It's "won" by Crawford who isn't doing anything other than making sure he gets there first knowing he'll be kicked. He's not trying to do anything with the ball. It's still a penalty though.

We were awful for the first half hour and lucky not to be at least three down. Every corner caused chaos and Shankland missed a sitter of the sort I'd expect my 9 year old to knock in. And we lost Dobbie to what was clearly a hamstring and we'll be lucky to see him again this season (unless we are in the playoffs maybe?). Ironically the goal came after we'd more or less weathered the storm and Ayr had run out of ideas. It's probably a penalty. It's one of those where the defender goes to clear the ball and the attacker runs across him just as he goes to clear it and he probably hits player before ball. I didn't think it was a free kick for handball in the build up to the penalty incident though. That looked incredibly harsh on a live viewing. First 15 - 20 mins 2nd half we were much better and seemed to have Ayr at sixes and sevens at the back. We didn't massively threaten goals though. McGrath should have scored with a point blank header from Dykes cross, though it came at him very quickly. In the end though Ayr saw out the last 10 or 15 mins relatively comfortably without threatening to add to their goal. The main worry isn't so much losing the game, it's losing Dobbie and wondering who is going to score the goals without him there. And if he doesn't make it back this season what a shame that he'll come up one short of the single season scoring record.

Well I wouldn't even have Goal B in the top 3. It's an opportunistic strike, very well executed, but there's nothing clever about it. I'd have Moffat's goal against Dundee United as the best and Shankland's goals at Dundee United and at Ross County as the next best. I'd probably go F, I, G in that order. The one touch passing and control from three players in the build up to the Moffat goal is outstanding. I'm not conscious there was any particular issue between Higgins and Muirhead notwithstanding one very high profile incident. They won't be the first or last players to square up in the heat of the moment on the pitch. I think it was forgotten about after the final whistle to be honest.

I'll have to disagree with the two of you then. I was pretty much in line with it all the way and I never thought he was shooting. Just looked to me like he was knocking it into a dangerous position. I didn't think the Marshall one was a penalty but I didn't think it was a foul by him either. There wasn't really anything in it. Both players tried to make it look like they'd been fouled. I'd have waved play on, in which case it went for a goal kick anyway.

The first Buchanan one looks a penalty to me. I don't think he's ever going to get the 3rd one. Half a decent shout on the 2nd one too. Morton's goal is never a shot. Telfer is just playing it into a danger area and it misses everyone, Leighfield sees it too late or he'd have thrown a cap over it. I'd forgotten about Buchanan getting lucky dodging a red card for pulling back Dykes as he's going through too. There were defenders slightly behind on either side but realistically he's clean through on goal and Buchanan could have had no complaints at seeing red for it.

ill

I suppose if time has expired already and everyone knows it then it maybe prevents them even going for the rebound and reduces the possibility of the potential "scenes". I'm surprised he didn't blow the final whistle once the goal was scored though if that was the case. Not sure why he let Falkirk actually kick off.

Seen them again now. No argument with the Falkirk penalty. No idea why Dykes does that. He seems to still have his body between the opponent and the ball, But there's a hand to ball movement and it looks a penalty to me. Ours is VERY soft. I think there's some contact from Osman and it's an odd challenge to make where he almost steps his leg in front of Dykes. But he seems to take another step before he goes down. Lucky to get it I suspect.

Those "scenes" and the slow walk red card caused the time added for our penalty.

Thought they were both pretty soft on a live viewing. Would need to see them again. Game didnt deserve a winner really but if it did it would have been Dobbie's pearler that hit the bar 5 mins earlier. Or Wilson's piledriver that Burgoyne made a remarkable save from. It wasnt a great game but I felt we had the better chances.